


Chaotic Neutral!

by JesseofManga, NRMania, Tsun (ProfessionalTsundere)



Series: Chaotic Triad [1]
Category: Final Fantasy IV, Homestuck, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Skullgirls, ゼロの使い魔 | Zero no Tsukaima | The Familiar of Zero
Genre: #tagdiscourse, (But it also really fucking hurt apparently), (You wanna fucking go tag-tsun?), Cav got to powerful to fast, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, HI ive gone bat shit, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, and then locked his keys in the car so all is back to normal, becoming a magical girl is my ultimate dream!, except for that bracket one that's riley, fucking fight me bitch!, jesse got to powerful to fast and im not happy, list we've stopped adding tags because we're all shitty at this, most of these tags are made by Tsun if you didnt know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 03:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8188738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JesseofManga/pseuds/JesseofManga, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRMania/pseuds/NRMania, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalTsundere/pseuds/Tsun
Summary: "Now this is a story all about how three morons got their life turned upside down."But all iconic TV rap openings aside, we're really the worst trio that could be taking this interdimensional roadtrip.





	1. Fuck Your Magic Ya Stuck Up Bitch

 

It started like any other day. Three nerds were talking over the internet despite the great distance between them.

“So then I was like, ‘Galactic Punt!’ and BOOM, boss is down. I rule at that game!” Haley proudly proclaims, doing cool actions despite the other two not being able to see them.

“Good job… I guess?” Riley replied with confusion.

“Isn’t that an insta-kill? I don’t think that can kill a boss…” Colin replied in his usual uncaring manner.

“Ehh…… ANYWAYS! Guysguysguysguys I found this really cool myth thingy when I was doing research and it sounds like awesome!!!!! Okay so it suppose to be like this awesome friendship ritual and it involves a paper doll and you have to tear it apart and-”

“This sounds like a terrible idea, and I know where it’s going, and NO!”

“But CAV!!! I want my life to be an anime, even if it’s a terrible idea that will most assuredly kill me.”

“It ain’t happening. Never. NO.”

“Then Bala-Balansu! It’s from a magical girl anime, that won’t hurt?”

“Yes it will, just not in the same way.”

“It sounds like creepypasta stuff, I’m in.”

“Goddamnit…”

“Outvoted, Cav, lets be crazy.”

“Damnit, it’s always 2 to 1 in favor of something crazy and/or stupid…”

While the trio was bickering three strange portals opened across the globe, coincidentally appearing behind the friends. Haley fell first, tumbling in with a yelp while spinning in her computer chair. Next was Riley, who leaned further into his large red leather chair too much and started to fall backwards. Finally, a portal appeared beside Colin, who, deciding to nope the fuck out, stood from his chair and headed for the door. Unfortunately, he tripped over an old soda can, falling face first into another portal opening beneath him. “Son of a…” was the last thing heard from him.

* * *

 

The group was dumped unceremoniously underneath a tree in the opposite order they entered the portals. Three voices exclaimed three different things.

“Fucking hell!”

“Bweh!”

“…Bitch. Wait, what?” Colin looked up from his spot at the bottom of the heap and stared at the collection of children all staring at him.

“Oh, well, this isn’t creepy as fuck.”

“Okay what the fuck is going on he……..” Haley looked at the children and a spark of recognition shone in her eyes. “Oh hell yes. It’s my time to shine. Wait doesn’t she….”

“Oh, great, Haley’s happy. Guess we’re gonna die, then…”

While the triad was recovering from their tumble one particular girl was talking to a balding man, her face flush from both embarrassment and anger. With a sigh she turned towards the pile and looked at them with an analytical eye.

“Oh, fuck nope nope nope this is not happening!!!” Haley jumped off the pile and held out a hand in a ‘stop’ motion at the girl. “Louise, je m’appelle Haley… ano….. Ehh, parle vous…. err…… English?” (In the background, Riley screamed in a grouchy, girly voice “I’M ANIME!”)

The girl, Louise stared at the trio. She had understood what Haley was saying in the beginning but has lost her near the end.

“Ah great…. arg it’s like, shit fuck I can’t…… T-translation magics? Please let that work be the same, can’t deal…” Luckily it seemed the balding man in the back had an idea of what was being said and raised his wand to cast the spell.

“Great, great, is this working? Testing, testing?”

“What is it.” Louise snapped, done with Haley’s antics.

“Oh, great, one of these…”

“Well, Miss Val...ier? Valerie? I never bothered to remember all your names. Anyways! I do believe you’ve made a mistake with your little summoning ritual here.”

“Can you give us an example of one that got the intended result? Seriously, this is pretty common. Unfortunately, in this case… Anyway! The HELL is happening!?”

“You see you didn’t actually summon us, you interrupted a…. Apparition type travel. We’re basically magic QA testers and you kinda got in the way of that. We didn’t mean to cause all this trouble, just a bit of magic collision is all.” Haley closed her eyes and prayed that her lie would work. _“Please let them be dumb enough to believe it was accidental interference, I don’t wanna be kissed by her.”_

“But hey, take this comfy chair as compensation for this mistake.” Riley cut in as he pushed his chair towards the conversing group. _“I don’t wanna lose my chair but I don’t wanna be kissed by her.”_

“Now while I know that repeating the ritual can be seen as disgraceful to…..” She turned around to whisper at her companions, “Pizza, do you know the old Magician’s name?”

“Old magician dude?” Riley whispered back.

“Screw it,” she turned back to the crowd. “The Wizard of the Void Element, but you must also think that we, sadly, interrupted her spell by choosing this path as our test run, unaware that there would be summonings done today. While it does provide wonderful data it also seemed to have some bad side effects. I propose that you allow her to repeat the spell, it only seems fair. Oh, actually speaking of spells it.. appears… Oh my, I seemed to have lost my wand.”

“Suspicious.” A blue haired girl muttered from her spot next to a dragon. She had been watching the conversation and didn’t trust the newcomers.

“Yeah!” Her busty friend spoke up from next to her, “how do we even know you’re magicians and not some commoners lying to us!”

“Uh, well, you see, the thing with that is… um… Riley, tell them. Answering stupid questions is your department.”

“Umm okay,” Riley whispered to him before pointing to everyone in the crowd  “How do we know you aren’t some crazy cultists loo-”

Haley placed her hand over Riley’s mouth. “Not today Pizza.” Reaching into her pocket she pulled out a black rectangle the size of her palm. “This is how we prove we’re not commoners.” With a press of the button she turned the phone on and waved it at the students. “We’re experts in the ancient and mystical artifacts, they would never allow mere commoners around items so precious, now would they?”

Then, out of nowhere, Colin remembered an old friend mentioning this anime. “Ah, I think I have an idea. It’ll probably lead to a lot of bullshit, but I doubt any of us want to be Miss Zero here’s familiar, so…!” Colin stood from his spot, knocked the wand out of the pink-haired bitches hands, and forced her to kiss the chair Riley had unintentionally brought along.

Haley stared at what Colin did, sighed, and proceeded to try and hide in her oversized jacket. “Yay for men’s large. They’re always ready to take you to sweater town when you’ve had enough.”

“Did I forget something?”

“You…. You brute!” Louise recovered from the push and snatched back her wand. “How dare you harm me, Louise Françoise le Blanc de La Vallière! And how dare you call me a ‘Zero’.”

Knocking the wand away once more, Colin sighed. “I’d prefer not to deal with a tsundere bitch like you, so can we just get outta here? I think the right guy should be coming through any moment now…”

“The portals closed, we’re gonna die, I was trying to get her to send us away through another portal, oh my gosh I hate everything.” Haley was now nothing more than a lump underneath her sweater.

Picking up the wand, Colin turned to those he was unsure of their tsundere-bitch status, “Hey, can any of you open another one of those portals, just being around this whiney little brat here,” He pointed at Louise with her own wand, “is really annoying. I’d prefer to just be done with this and move on.”

“We are going to die and it’s Cav’s fault, it’s always his fault.” Riley chanted while he span around on the his chair insanely.

“Ugh, ya know what fuck this.” Haley rose up out of sweater town and unlocked her phone. “Do we get magical wifi here. That seems like the bullshit that needs to happen.” Lo and behold they did not have magical wifi. “Okay so fuck that idea then. Time to knife it.” With a flick of her wrist, Haley’s _Trusty Pocket Knife™_ was in her hand and ready to fight. She turned towards Colin and stabbed it in between his fingers. “Stop making things worse or I’ll chop your dick off.”

“Haley, hold on. You, pretty sure you’re Kirche, yeah? Why don’t you try opening one of those portals for us, eh, love?” Colin said, pointing to the busty red-head. “Plus,” he said, whispering this time, “At this point, I bet it would REALLY get on lil’ Zero there’s nerves.”

“Actually, summoning circles tap into Void magics, same as the translation spell and numerous other ‘non-elementals’. To have a fire mage reenact the summoning portal when she wasn’t even the one to call us does not have favourable results predicted.” Haley supplied, “honestly I don’t understand how you’d survive if you don’t have a basic understanding of these things, she could have dropped us into a volcano, or the same place her flame salamander came from.”

“Oh, alright, fine…” Colin replied. “Then, let’s see what this’ll do.” Giving the wand a few taps on the ground, Colin a few words. “Grand Void, open your gates and bring us to the Land of Fog and Moths.” For a few seconds, nothing seemed to happen. Then, a large, swirling portal appeared before the group. “Huh, did not actually expect that to work. Time to set things into motion! Come on, you two, I have a thing to get real quick.” And he stepped through the portal.

“Yer on my fucking hitlist, Cav. Keep one eye open or I swear…” The threat trailed off into undecipherable mumbles as Haley walked through the swirling vortex.

“Welp, we had a good run chair. I’ll miss you!” Riley cried as he jumped towards the portal, as he did so he also cried “LOUISE IS A VOID MAGE JUST SO YOU KNOW BYE NERDS.” and then he vanished into the swirling rip in the world.

 


	2. Why Do I Have to Murder You!?

“Well! I think that went well, don’t you?” Colin said, aware it would piss them off. Holding up the wand, “I mean, I got this neat back scratcher out of it.” 

“Well I lost my chair, so it better be able to scratch backs like ten times better than a normal hand or there’ll be a lot of hell to back” Riley whined.

Colin rolled his eyes, “Oh, quit whining, I’ll get your chair back, we just need to find something is this next place.”

Haley continued mumbling to herself, occasionally raising her voice slightly so as to be understandable, “... no fucking respect for magic, lucked out on elemental core….”

“Anyway, we should be coming up on LoFaM aaaany second now, so I should be able to get some shit to maybe make things go a bit better for us.”

“So instead of just requesting to be brought to a place you specified you also set a time, place, altitude so as we’re not free falling. You did all that when making the portal? I’m guessing you want to go to a HomeStuck place, well depending on the stage we enter it could either kill us or benefit us.” Haley pause, realizing something, “gods I’ve thought about this way too much….”

“Don’t worry, if I’m right, we should be right on top of a Page of Void Quest Bed, A K A, mine. You know with Homestuck there are basically infinite AU’s so long as there’s someone to think it exists? BOOM! Shenanigans are to be had! Now the question is, which of you is going to kill me?” looking back, Colin knew that, at this point, Haley was likely the one to jump at this, given what had just happened.

“Can we just like, Lord of the Flies it? Ya know, the whole Castle Rock scene?” It was basic high school reading, the sole female of the group expected them to know it.

“As in drop a rock on me? I’d prefer to move this along, so we don’t really have the time for that. Just slit my throat with your knife and I’ll be down in a few seconds once Prospit Me ascends.”

“Let’s not kill each-other just yet… I have no idea what to say next.”

“Oh, you’ve never read Homestuck? OK, well, basically die on a Quest Bed, you become a god, sooo… yeah.”

“... Okay so there is like, 5 liters of blood in the average body? And then you gotta lose like two before you even have a reasonable chance or death? Ehh, the main arteries you wanna cut are located at the inner thigh, jugular, and….. I remember hearing at school that if you actually  _ want _ to commit suicide you’re less likely to be saved if you cut a straight line on the inside of the upper arm. Actually that was a weird class… But inner thigh would take about 15 minutes, cold water would speed up death, which is why you don’t wanna bleed while in the arctic.”

“Was your class from freaking assassin classroom? Because that is really creepy stuff to know… more than the secret of the Echidna”

“Psychology actually. We also learned how to train others through Pavlo’s method. Ya know, the one where he made his dogs drool at the sight of a circle, or something? Oh speaking off assclass, we should check it out. I finally figured out how you’re actually supposed to pronounce ‘kyoushitsu’.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if we get out of this weirdness or we find some reasonable downtime.” Colin said as the portal spat them out right beside a slab of stone, roughly the size of a twin bed. “OK, time to die, I guess.” Laying on the slab, he followed with, “Haley, go ahead, throat needs to be open.”

“Urkk, yeah. Just…” Haley opened the pocket knife and looked down at it. “On one hand, murder! On the other hand it’d be of someone I deeply appreciate for putting up with me. On the third hand,” She said, grabbing one of Riley’s, “I know that he’ll come back to life. And back on the second hand, I’d still be murdering someone I cherish.” 

“Haley, for the love of Buddha, just do it!”

“FINE. Fourth and fifth rib, here I come!” With a violent thrust downwards, Haley aimed her knife to plunge into Colin’s heart and jumped back, leaving the blade sticking out of his body.

“Next we will find out this is just a regular stone slab and you really just kill -”

“Do not! I, just no.” Haley was turned away from the body, hiding her face under her hood.

As Riley finished his mumbling, a dark blue glow encased Colin’s limp, and very bloody corpse, as the many white moth flitting about the skies descended on him. As the glow faded, the moths took to the skies once more, and the corpse was gone.

“Is it gone, tell me it’s gone.”

“Well he turned into moths… it reminded me of some sort of Disney film.” 

Haley exhaled and turned around, keeping her hood over her eyes when she saw the bloody remnants. “Okay, that’s good. It worked, I didn’t just murder a friend, I didn’t. I-It’s going to be  _ fine _ .”

“Well, that happened. There was a light for a second, and I saw my great granddad, but it’s all good now.” Colin’s voice could be heard coming from behind the group.

“YOU JERKASS I’M GONna worry because god dammit you can’t just make someone with both depression and anxiety murder one of their best friends!!! …. I want, no need a hug.” Haley still held her fists out and looked more ready to pummel Colin to death (again) despite her words.

“Heh, OK, fine.” Colin walked over to hug the crazy little peanut.

“You’re a trash lord, ya piece of garbage.”

“I know. But now I’m a piece of garbage that controls the essence of nothingness. And I still have my back scratcher!” He cheered, holding up the wand.  Haley whacked him over the head at his comment.  “OK, probably deserved that.”

“YOU COULD CONTROL KYUREM, WE MUST GET IT FOR YOU” Riley cried out.

“Non, I call dibs on next ‘verse. I want to go to the 12th time loop, Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I have plans, and please follow my lead for once….”

“That may be a bit difficult, but here,” Holding up a hand, Colin opened another gate, “Man, I love void powers. Oh, also!” Holding up the hand still clutching the wand, and odd distortion appeared next to Riley, and POOF! his chair that had been in the previous world reappeared. “You’re welcome.”

“Thanks… you may have to summon this thing repeatedly because I wouldn’t be able to carry it. Everywhere, this is a like expensive movie seat chair and really heavy.” Riley said while he span around on the chair.

“Ugh, fine then how about this?” Holding a hand up towards the chair, Colin half-heartedly said “Null Gravity. Now try lifting it.”

Riley did, and began to laugh creepily as it was held up in one hand, “Could I hit someone over the face with this and they would still feel it with its proper weight?”

“It still has it’s mass, gravity just doesn’t give a fuck about it’s existence right now, so have fun.”

“Man, a Space attribute player would be good right now, but I wanna be a magical girl. Guess we don’t get the Seer. Oh well, I guess I just have to develope my soon-to-be powers enough to enchant that wardrobe.” A manic grin spread across Haley’s face, ”we’re gonna Narnia this bitch.”

“Anyways, should we get going? We have stupid shit to do, yeah?”

“Okay, fine. Well then, let’s get a move on.” With a simple hair flip Haley walked through the portal, as though trying to be professional.

“Haha, onwards, time to hit people with a chair!” Riley laughed as he carried the chair piggy-back through the portal.

“Ugh, I feel like I’m going to regret doing that…” Colin groaned. “Oh well.” he sighed, closing the portal behind Riley, and blinked out of existence.


	3. Get Moving Losers, We're Going Shopping

The two  _ mundane  _ humans landed in a dog pile on the other side of the portal, this time in a nondescript alley.

“We have got to get better at those landings.” Haley muttered, blowing a piece of hair away from her face.

“I need to learn how to land in my chair, all fighting game fight intro like.” Riley said as he removed himself from the pile.

“I have no idea what you two are talking about, I got here fine.” Colin said as he blinked back into existence beside the two lying flat on the ground.

“Listen you cuck, this is my rodeo now, and we’ve got business to attend to. First of all, new clothes. PJ’s and slippers might’ve been okay in a idiotic magic community and a world sans people, but not here. We’re in civilization so we’re going shopping!”

“Oh, right, this shit.” Colin looked down, finally noticing he was wearing the idiotic-looking Page God Tier Booty-Short-ed crap. “Umm, right, so…” Colin snapped his fingers, as the dumbass pants changed instantly into jeans, and the other God Tier PJ style bullshit changed to a simple, dark blue polo, the symbol remaining on the lapels. “OK, I’m good.”

“One of us is a god already… and I have a gravity-less chair? I feel insanely left out.” Riley mumbled as he placed the chair down and sat on it.

“Oh, don’t worry, you have dibs on the next world, so hush.” Colin said, slightly annoyed by that fact.

“Stupid powers aside, me and Pizza still need to get new clothes. Especially him.”

“Don’t diss the dressing gown, if i got the right under-clothing it would totally be sith worthy.”

“That aside, we don’t have money here, now do we?”

“You have the powers of a god, how morally corrupt do you want to be. I’m thinking theft, either of clothing or of funds. Screw capitalism.”

Colin sighed, “Fine,” he snapped his fingers, and another portal appeared, spitting out a single credit card. “There, go crazy, I’ll just make the debt cease to exist when that happens.”

“Great, okay shopping list. Firstly we need clothes, as stated before, next we need bags to carry our belongings, and thirdly, at least regarding our immediate needs, food.” Haley pocketed the card and pointed towards Colin. “Take us to the 109!”

“The what now?”

“The famous department store in Shibuya? Where you can get loads of stuff, including cat stockings? Like seriously?”

“Well, alright then.” Colin snapped his fingers, and another portal opened. “Alright, let’s go. This time, walk through it, it’s not going to end up dropping you this way.”

And so the ragtag bunch made their way through to the Shibuya 109, obtaining clothing and (i don't know a catch all term for different types of bags) before returning to Mitakihara with their spoils.

“OK, now what? You got your things, so do we bail, or is there a reason for being here?”

“I’ll explain my plan then. We need to gain Mami Tomoe’s trust, because she’s the magical girl for this city. My plan is to print out a ‘lost cat’ poster, only instead it has a picture of Kyuubey. We approach her on her way home from school and tell her a false tale. I’m thinking something along the lines of ‘I was saved by another magical girl in my old city, she already had a team but told me that Kazamino only had one, I went there and a red headed girl told me about you and I was wondering if you’d help me become a Puella Magi’, what do you think so far?”

“I think something very bad will happen because of the Satan rat, but I could just undo that shit. Besides the potential bad, I don’t see anything wrong with it, so long as I’m not physically nearby.”

“Nothing will go wrong. I chose the 12th timeline for a reason. This is when Madoka ascends. But anyways, I tell Mami I want to be a magical girl, she, being the idealist she is, is eager to have a kouhai and will introduce me to Kyuubey. Nothing is suspicious, especially because if he asks why he hasn’t noticed us I’ll say I’ve only been in town a couple days. So badabing, badaboom I’m a magical girl and becoming what I’ve always dreamed. I have the costume planned out and everything. But that aside, we need to make a copy of that poster and grab something to eat.”

“I think I can do something about that, if you’re OK abusing the crap out of my god powers?”

“No. If I know anything about travelling to different worlds, which I only know that’s to kingdom hearts, is that there is a strict ‘no meddling’ policy. And I also have a feeling if we effect the story or anything like that we’re going to get imps on our tail, based off where your powers are from. I don’t believe Pizza and I are going to cause that because we lack natural enemies from and world, which is why this needs to be done as mundane as possible.”

“Hmmm, you know, the whole ‘God of the Void’ thing’s a bit lame. I mean, we did just start this journey of utter BS, so, how about this.” Colin snaps his fingers, and a ball of dark blue energy appears in his hand, the vague swirl symbol of the void emblazoned on it. “For now, I’ll keep the god power crap in a pocket dimension, and only tap into it if we get into serious shit, OK? Seem fair? I mean, I do still have the Void Magic Wand I swiped.”

“Put it in the chair! Void God Chair is best chair!” Riley cried out while pointing to the chair on his back, now tied to him with rope.

Colin groaned. “No. Say it again and I use the wand on the chair.”

“Wow, maybe you’re not as much of an asshole as I thought you were. Or did you realize that once I become an earthbound immortal that’d I’d kick your shin in?”

“OK, God powers are coming back when THAT happens.”

“I meant I’d kick your shin in once we were on equal footing and you has bullshit powers, not when you deliberately limit yourself. I only would have physically harmed you if you were making this unfun.”

“Anyway, you should probably get to that plan of yours. I’m gonna go screw around with the Void magic I still have because of sheer luck, ‘cause I feel like a high magical presence like that could lead to bad things.”

“I’m gonna go beat up a wall with my chair. No idea what else I’ll do because I don’t have magic powers or a plan… currently.”

Haley pulled out the map she had purchased and walked out into the street. “I’ll meet you guys at the main park when this is all over? That cool?”

“Alright. I think I’m gonna take a quick portal somewhere just to really quick pick something up, if that’s OK. Nothing major, and there isn’t really much to do in that world, so you two wouldn’t miss much. It’d give me some time to get this Void magic under control.”

“See ya later, space cowboy.”


	4. Call Void AAA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ... I locked my god powers in a pocket dimension

And so Riley hit his chair against the wall repeatedly, crying out words as he did so.

“All’s CHAIR”

“CHAIR we go!”

“Have a seat!”

“Take a load off!”

“Nonono, this is too Beowulf... actually... that gives me an idea!”

* * *

Exiting the portal, Colin appeared just outside the town of Baron. “Ah, excellent, now to find…” he began, until he noticed the peach-haired white mage, her attire as shameless as ever. “Rosa. Yeah, no mistaking her…” Changing his clothing to match that of an apprentice white mage, he ran up to her. “Excuse me, Miss Rosa?” he called. “Hm? Yes? And who might you be?” She answered, turning to face him. She was gorgeous, and her choice of clothing made it difficult to focus on her face. “Umm, I… I was wondering, could you, um, maybe, show me how to cast Hold and Mini? I know you must be busy, but those spells went over my head in today's lesson, and I wanted to ask for some extra help with them.” He said, looking down, trying to seem as innocent as possible. “Hmmm, well, if you need some extra help, I suppose I could lend you some assistance. My friend Rydia was going to visit me today, though.” She looked in the direction of her house. “Oh, um, would it be alright if you both taught me a little? I’d love to learn some black magic, or even summoning, just to defend myself if the need arises.” He looked up at her, trying his best to make his eyes seem pleading. “Well, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Come along then.”

“Hey Rosa! Huh? Who’s that, one of your apprentices?” The young woman dressed in green said from her seat on the table. “Hello, Rydia, and yes, this is...umm, actually, I can’t remember his name. My apologies, but what was your name, again?” Rosa turned towards Colin, an apologetic look on her face. “Oh, um, m-my name is… Corrin, Miss Rosa.” Rydia, also wearing an outfit that leaves very little to the imagination, turned to him. “So, what are you doing here, hm?” Acting nervous to the best his ability, he stuttered out “Um, I-I w-was a little l-lost in today’s less… lesson, so I wanted to ask M-m-miss Rosa to teach me again.” Rydia giggled. “Poor guy, nervous? You don’t need to be, we were all where you are at one point or another.” Rosa spoke up, “He also said he would like to learn a bit from you too, Rydia.”

“Really? Hmm, sure, why not? I guess, mmm, How about I teach you how to summon a cockatrice? It can be a really helpful summon if some monsters get to close. Or maybe just one of the basics, like Shiva or Ifrit?” 

“Um, m-maybe just some basic black magic? That would be alright.” He said. The other two might not like it if he could summon something like those, and he was still pushing his luck with the Mini spell. “Oh, really? That’s unfortunate, but, I guess I could at least teach you… mmm… Ah! How about Thunder? Maybe not the most basic spell, but it is very strong.”

“Why don’t I show him how to cast Mini and Hold first, then we can move on to the newer magic, OK?” Finally, Rosa showed him the hand motions and taught him the incantation. “Now, simply envision the target becoming smaller, then speak the incantation, and your target will be under the effect.” And after a few more hours of teaching, Colin also managed to figure out the spells Hold, Pig, Thunder, and even Haste, thanks to the two mages. “Th-thank you, both of you. I-I’d best b-be off now! I need to practice for tomorrow!” He waved good-bye to the two woman, glad he managed to get a few more spells than he’d bargained for. Once out of town, he opened another portal, “Heh heh, she’s gonna hate me so much for this.” A sly grin crept across his face as he stepped through the portal, exiting into the park, designated as their meeting point.

* * *

 It was about a fifteen minute walk to Mitakihara Middle School, but luckily for Haley the school day was still an hour from ending. She sat at a cafe within the sights of the school gates and got to drawing the ‘lost cat’ poster.

“Okay so he has rabbit ears coming out of his cat ears, and I think there were floating rings somewhere in the design? It’s times like this I hate my stupid memory…”

The ringing of a bell took her attention off the childlike drawing of Kyuubey. Soon a flood of preteen girls left the Middle School gates and went their separate ways.

“It’s go time.” With a smirk, Haley looked for the blonde ringtailed girl. Upon seeing the signature ringlets exit the gates Haley ran after her, quickly catching up.

“Are, are you Tomoe Mami?” Haley panted, unused to any real physical activity.

“Yes, who are you?”

“I’m-” Haley paused, realizing what she was doing. “Umm….. I-I’m… I’vebeenlookingforyou.” she rushed to get the sentence out, face flushing. “I’mlookingformycatandaredheadinKazaminetoldmeyoumightknowwhereitis.” She shoved the piece of paper at Mami before turning sideways and covering her face with her hands.

“This is.. Kyuubey?”

“Y-yeah… I want to become a magical girl.” Haley turned to face her, eyes shining. “In fact you could say it’s my ultimate dream! Someone fighting for the forces of love and truth, whose mission is to bring happiness to those who need it most! It’s a noble position to aspire to be! So please, please introduce me to Kyuubey, I know he can make my wishes come true!” Her words came out in a flurry, both honest and meant to appeal to Mami’s sense of justice.

“ _Does that mean your wish is to simply become a magical girl?_ ” The alien appeared over a fence and hopped onto Mami’s shoulder. “ _I can grant that right now if you wish._ ”

“Oh my gosh, you adorable little cat-bunny~ Ahh, no my wish isn’t to be a magical girl, my wish,” Her eyes regained their manic gleam, “is for the power of recreation. I want to be able to both change who I am and change the world around me.” She felt a painful tug in the center of her chest, doubling over as the air was taken out of her lungs.

“ _And so, your wish has surpassed entropy._ ”


	5. Yeah, I'm Leaving You

And so Haley and Riley regrouped , though Colin was nowhere to be seen . Haley was staring at her hand, eyes blank.

“Woah, who took out your heart and smashed it on the ground?” Riley asked his friend.

“It’s just…” Haley looked at Riley, looking like she was about to cry, “I’ve finally gotten my dream. For the first time ever, something I’ve dreamed about has come true and I could just explode! Like I had resigned myself to becoming a magical girl of different definition but now I’m not only a bonafide magical girl but a Puella Magi? This has got to be one of the best days ever!” She was jumping up and down, unable to contain her excitement.

“Can this be classed as one day? From our world to another world where it is daytime to a… I don’t know what time it was in that slab place to the the afternoon, I mean time is super confusing now. But hey you got one dream, I wished on twenty shooting stars when I went to the Grand Canyon and there aren’t any Pokemon in our world, so you made more progress than me.”

“I don’t know and I don’t care~”

“Alright then, well since you have what you want… didn’t Cav say it was time for me to pick a world to go to? Where is that OP guy anyway?”

“Hey bitches, what’s up!” Colin shouted, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

“Look, it’s garbage man!”

“Eater of trash!”

“You two are no fun…”

“We’re totally fun, even funner than you! But ya know, Pizza, if you wanna go somewhere else there may be a small problem. I gotta go get a supply, and make it to the new world. Ahh, not the ‘new world’ as in a new world where you’re going but the literal new world this place becomes. And then I have a more viable source of sustenance.”

“And how long will that shit take?”

“The cycle lasts about 36 days, and judging with how Mami wasn’t with Madoka or Sayaka it might not have even started, you go have fun. I’ll be here for a month and try to survive. Do you think our phones work interdimensionally?”

“I don’t even have one!”

“So steal one, it’s not that difficult, Mr Void.”

“Uh, heh heh, about that... ”

“Hoe don’t do it.”

“While I was in the Final Fantasy 4 world getting some shit, I maaay have tried to get the summon Bahamut just for giggles and run into a Behemoth, which is a thing that would warrant the God powers, but I couldn’t re-open the pocket dimension I threw it into… Sooo, I may have lost the God powers? Heh heh…”

“Oh my gods.” 

“Welp you failed super bad, haha you shoulda put the powers in the chair instead!”

“I was not putting the powers of a GOD into a CHAIR!”

“EVERY OP BEING NEEDS A THRONE CAV AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN YOUR THRONE, BECAUSE IT WOULD HAVE YOUR POWERS DAMN IT.”

“Look, it doesn’t matter, I still have the void magic and the wand I swiped from that little Zero bitch, so we at least still have portals. Plus, while Haley was doing her things, I managed to learn some magical shit from the Final Fantasy 4 world, so now I can do THIS!” Colin began chanting, and before long, Riley was transformed, through black magic, into an odd, bipedal pig.

_ “Do not become rage filled pig, do not become rage filled pig.” _ Riley thought as he squealed in annoyance.

“Oh hey Hawk.” Haley turned to leave, “anyways you probably won’t recognize me when you return, I gotta go hunt some witches.”

“RRRRR PIGAIN BAT” Riley cried as he swung his chair at Colin.

“Wait, oh shit, pigs can still fight, shit!” Colin screamed while fleeing the chair-wielding Riley-Pig.

“TURN ME BACK OR I’M SHOVING THIS CHAIR INTO YOUR MOUTH AND PULLING IT THROUGH YOUR INTESTINES, THEN I’LL REPEAT IT OVER AND OVER.”

Colin began chanting again, and in second, shouted “Hold!” causing the Riley-Pig to freeze in place, paralyzed.

Haley looked at the scene with pitying eyes. “Children, seriously?” She placed a hand on Riley’s forehead and brown energy emitted from her ring. “Recreate as the original form!” Riley’s pig form shimmered and glowed, morphing back into a human shape.  

Riley sighed, he was still paralyzed but he wasn’t a pig anymore, “Someday I’ll turn you into a pig, I don’t mean like this one I mean a small baby black piglet with no strength, but for now revenge can wait.”

“Turn him into a micro pig!”

“Well, to get that revenge, you’ll have to find me, mo-fo!” Has he said this, he chanted a quick incantation, shouted “Mini!”, and seemingly vanished. A small, squeaky voice barely reached Haley and Riley’s ears, saying “Peace, bitches! You ain’t gonna see me for a while!” as a miniscule flash darted into a nearby bush.

Haley turned to Riley and said, with a blank expression “You’re job, not mine,” and left for real this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so haley goes off to the side story "Becoming the Ideal Person"


	6. There Are VOICES In My HEAD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alternatively, "The Narrator Gets Tired of Riley's Shit"

“WAIT I’M STILL PARALYZED. GOD DAMNIT GUYS!”

He was stuck like that for what felt like ten minutes (but was probably only around thirty seconds) and after he shook in both anger and in an attempt to remove whatever paralysis was still there.

“IT’S ON NOW YA MIDGET.” The chase was on, with Riley holding his chair high above his head as he too ran into the bushes in an attempt to catch the void magic wielder.

“CAAAVVVV! I WON’T HURT YOU, I’LL JUST LET YOU TAKE A SEAT ON THIS CHAIR… AS A PILE OF GOO!” Riley couldn’t find the mini-man… and after a long time of searching, he was soon out of breath and took a rest atop the chair. 

“You’re pretty bad at this, y’know?” a squeaky voice said as he rested. “How long’s it been? Half hour? Maybe a full hour? You’re not gonna find me just looking around normal places. Keeekekekekeke.” The voice continued, ending with a creepy laugh.

“WHO DO YOU THINK I AM, FUCKING UNDYNE? NO I WAS MADE TO SIT ON THIS CHAIR AND SIT I SHALL, I LIKE TO THINK IF YOU WAIT PEOPLE WILL EVENTUALLY JUST COME TO YOU.” And so the running was over, but the extremely serious other game began… the waiting game.

Seeing what he was doing from his high vantage point, Colin began a short chant and said, “Thunder.”, causing a small lightning bolt to fall from the otherwise clear sky, directly atop Riley.

“Son of a… no that would be offensive to his mother and she was a pretty nice lady… IN BED!”

“I will make you a pig again, you little shit!” Colin’s squeaky voice shouted.

“YOU’RE THE LITTLE ONE RIGHT NOW YA SWEETCORN SIZED FUCK!”

“We’ll see about that, boy.” and Colin began chanting, finishing by shouting, as loudly as he could, “MINI!”, and Riley and all he was wearing and carrying was reduced to around the same size as Colin.

“Well then, if you want to play hide and seek, I’ll be the one hiding now!” So Riley ran into the bushes.

“I ain’t seeking, bitch. I’m going to… ENJOY this time…” Colin’s voice spoke up, trailing off with another creepy laugh.

Riley didn’t hear, as he was hiding in a super secret spot.

“Well, even if you ain’t listening, I’m gonna go make a few women’s clothing store think they have a mouse problem.” was the last thing Colin said before going through another portal to gods only know where.

Riley sat in a bush, napping on his now small chair.

Colin, again, not being one to leave well enough alone, opened a portal a fair distance behind Riley, and began chanting, finishing by whispering “Mini...” and portaling back out, as Riley began returning to normal size.

“Eh… fuck Cav and his bullshit… just wanna go to Terraria and shit.” Riley mumbled as he just stayed in the bush, not bothering to try and get out.

“Heh heh, this is to freaking fun.” Colin said to himself, warping to a distant tree just within view of the bush Riley was stuck in.

“Are you sure you were playing Cavan, or was he you all along you sadistic fuck?” Riley growled to nobody but hoping Colin heard.

He did not. He simply sat back in the tree, enjoying the fact he could stay up there with ease due to his small size.

Riley was silently plotting non descript revenge as he slowly got out of the bush along with his chair.

“Hmm, I’m honestly surprised that chair of his is still in zero g’s. That was connected to my Void God powers, not the magic, and the god powers are gone, so all of the in-place effects should have faded...” Colin muttered to himself, pondering the reason. Could he still tap into those powers? Could he still open that pocket dimension? These thoughts filled Colin’s head as he lay in the tree. Another thought passed  through as well: “Should I follow through with the bullshit I was saying about the clothing stores?” He lingered on this thought for a few seconds, then shook his head. “Nah, nothing’s ever as good as you imagine it, and it’d just be creepy. I should probably just go to a few more JRPG worlds and swipe some gear or spells or whatever.”

“Zzzzz” Riley had fallen asleep, and was dreaming of sheep made of chairs.

Before leaving, Colin warped over to the sleeping Pizza, and cast Thunder on him, and left without another word.

“Super fuzzy sheep… Zzz” Riley had begun to think of sheep, whose wool had turned extremely poofy due to static electricity.

A couple hours later Riley work up abruptly while screaming “OOWWW.”

“I hate Cav so much right now, when I find him… I will ask him to take me somewhere.” 

—— 

Once more exiting a portal on his own and returning to normal size, Colin appeared once more in the world of Final Fantasy 4, though this time, on the surface of the moon, just outside a cave. He sighed, why was he even doing this? Last time he came here he didn’t want to learn to summon, now he had gone back to get a summon? Stepping through the doorway, he was oddly not confronted by the maze he remembered from the game. In front of him stood two children, on either sides of a long flight of stairs. He was already at the end? “If you wish to see the father of Eidolon, then you may proceed.” The young boy on the left said. Colin looked between them, then back at the stairs, proceeding upwards. At the top of the exceedingly long staircase stood a single figure, with long blonde hair, clad in gray and pale blue rodes. “Do you seek to draw upon the power of the father of the Eidolon? The strongest of our kind?” the figure asked. Colin nodded. The mightiest of Eidolon, the mightiest summon, stood before him. The figure’s form shifted, changing into a ball of blue light, which grew into the shape of a massive dragon. “Bahamut…”

“Thunder!” Colin shouted, the bolt aimed for the mighty dragons wing, in an attempt to ground it. Bahamut let loose a powerful roar, causing explosion after explosion to trail the exasperated would-be mage. “You are impressive,” the voice of the dragon roared, “but you must be far stronger if you wish to gain my aid!” Another roar, this time followed by a stream of light blue energy from the dragon’s maw. “Shit, shit, shit.” Colin said through gritted teeth. He quickly opened a portal below himself, slipping into a pocket dimension to evade the blast. “Ugh, if only I still had those damn god powers, this would go much more smoothly.” As he said this, he felt something, roughly the size of a baseball, bump into his back. He turned around and picked up the dark blue ball, and saw a swirl mark on it. A creepy smile crossed his face. “Darling…”

“Hmm, did he flee? Unfortunate, I do not think I was able to see his full strength.” Bahamut thought aloud. It had been a few minutes since the one who challenged him had vanished. “Perhaps he was not ready.”

“I wasn’t! Not until now, m’lord!” Called a voice in a from behind the dragon. Colin had reappeared behind him, now adorned in his own version of the Page of Void’s attire, a simple dark blue suit, like that of a butler, tails trailing behind, on his left lapel was pinned the symbol of the Void. “Now I think we’re on more even footing, if I should say so myself, Lord Bahamut.”

“Yet you still refer to me as ‘Lord’. If you truly saw us as equals, you would not use such a title.” The dragon responded. “I simply wish to be polite. We are in your domain after all. I may have challenged you, but I do not wish to be rude.” Colin smirked. It was true, he respected the one known as the Father of Eidolon, at least for his power. He didn’t really have much of a character outside of helping Rydia in-game, but he was a very strong summon. “Hm, very well, show me the fullest extent of your power, or you shall be deemed unworthy to call upon me!” The great dragon let loose another stream of light, but Colin was prepared now. He opened a single portal, intercepting the blast. “My turn.” he said, as he opened several exit portals, all connected to the first. “Enjoy, m’lord.” was all he said before the torrent of Bahamut’s own attack was thrown back in his face.

His new ability in hand, and an old one reacquired, Colin opened a portal back to the Puella Magi universe. “Until I need your assistance, Lord Bahamut.”

“Until then, my friend.”

——

Popping back out beside the tree in the park, Colin cast Mini on himself and decided to take a nap in it’s branches. Fighting a giant freaking dragon is tiring, after all.

“HEY CAV, I PROMISE NOT TO ATTEMPT TO KILL YOU AT LEAST TEN TIMES IF YOU DO SOMETHING FOR ME!” Riley shouted to the heavens.

“Heh, moron…” Colin whispered to himself, hearing Riley’s pointless whining.

“I’M LITERALLY A REGULAR, STUPID HUMAN RIGHT NOW, I WANT TO AT LEAST BE ABLE TO SURVIVE THE MULTIVERSE OF OVERPOWERED PEOPLE OKAY?!” Riley begged to no-one.

Colin began quickly portaling around Riley. “If you can manage to find and catch me, I’ll grant you one wish. Or at least take you somewhere. And I won’t leave this universe. Peace, bitch!” He said before transporting away.

“Welp, guess I’m dead then, can’t catch someone like that. Human against teleporting douche? Impossible.” Riley flopped down onto the grass.

“But what Riley didn’t know,” a mysterious voice from out of nowhere said, “was that it would be very easy to catch him if he just used the right bait for a perv in anime.”

“Thanks for the tip, omnipresent voice. Where can I get that stuff though? Oh I have an idea.” Riley jumped up, “HEY CAV, I’LL FIND SOMEONE WHO WILL ACCEPT A BREAST GROPE IF YOU TAKE ME SOMEWHERE!”

A low, echoing slap sound could be heard, like the sound of a palm against a forehead. “I meant panties, Riley.” The voice of the randomly appearing narrator said, sounding disappointed.

“I knew that, but I’m in a world of magical murder girls, and I got no money to buy panties and that would look weird and if I stole them there is a chance of them belonging to magical murder girl, or just a regular woman who has no qualms beating up a fat guy.”

“Think about it like this, you’re in an anime. Logic doesn’t really apply as much as you’d think. It would likely be somewhat easy to steal a pair, even from the magical murder girls. If you want your things from Terraria, then you need to take drastic measures.”

“How about you get them for me, because if you don’t I’ll murder your family as soon as I find out where you come from… I’ll even murder your dog.”

“I’m a disembodied voice. I can’t touch anything, and I don’t have a family, because of the fact I’m just a voice. Also, it’s against the Narrator Code to directly aid the characters in a story.”

“Alright fine… wait if this is a story can you just skip to a point where I have said objects?”

“There is also a rule against denying the readers enjoyable scenes, and your attempts to steal a pair of panties would likely be to humorous to skip.”

“There better be some sort of cliche KYAAA sound then. Let's go narrator.” And so Riley went in search of an object he would rather not steal, and not at all attempt to buy in a place he has no idea where things are.

‘Now where can I find a… ”

“And then Riley noticed a large building off in the distance, one the looked distinctly like an anime school.”

Riley sighed, but starts walking towards the school, no matter how bad an idea it was. The entrance was open, so entry was easy but the problem was what he would need to do next.

Or maybe it would be easy, I mean how hard can stealing panties be? Oh who was he kidding he” was totally gunna die via a very painful kick.

“Geez, don’t be so mean to him! He’s clearly uncomfortable and shouldn’t be made to do things he isn’t okay with! How about we brainstorm a solution to this problem that will appease both parties?” This time a different disembodied voice spoke, the were the conscience of the story and hoping the narrator and Riley would do the right thing.

“Hmm, sounds slower, but better for him, at least. Can’t say how the readers’ will feel, but…”

“If they respect him, or us, at all they will understand. While some may not be happy they must realize that if someone isn’t having fun, then it’s not really fun for anyone.”

“I appreciate it other disembodied voice in my head, I’m getting out of this school’s grounds as fast as possible and heading back to the forest.” He did so.

“Maybe I should just wait… or act like a hobo and ask for money, I’m sure I look hobo enough if i got out these new clothes. Or maybe… no that's dumb too. Let’s face it, I am super doomed. And we know that Cav is a very douchey person who will hurt his friends for the hell of it. It’s pick on Pizza week isn’t it?” By the time he was finished ranting he already found his way back to his bush-chair, and was now thinking if he could find a way to write a will.

“Hmm, if luring him is out of the question, then maybe trying to figure out where he’s hidden would work better? He did say he wouldn’t leave this universe and… ugh, I’m breaking the code here but, he is staying in this universe. He won’t leave this one until you find him, so there’s that.”

“Great… but how do I know he is possible to catch? I mean if I find him he could just teleport away again.?”

“Ugh, I’m breaking so many rules… He will count being caught as having his arm grabbed, or anything to that degree. He also won’t teleport until you’ve chased him at least three-hundred feet from where you found him.”

“Alright then. Time to find a Cav then!”

“Luck, luck, luck!”

“Thanks voice number two.” Riley started his search by climbing the nearest tree, but soon realised he sucks at climbing trees, and fell onto the grass a few moments later.

“Maybe we should try thinking where he’d hide first…”

“That’s a good idea… AND I THOUGHT OF THAT ALREADY! THAT’S WHY I CLIMBED THE TREE, BECAUSE I’VE SEEN HIM UP IN TREES. ALSO… OOOOOWWWWWW” Riley screamed.

“Hmm, hey, C, what’d you think?”

“‘Bout what?”

“About where that little skunk Colin is hiding.”

“If he’s a skunk it should be easy to find him? Or do they only let off an odor after they spray…”

“Only after.”

“Hmm….. Say bad puns until he comes out of hiding?”

“What do you call a pea that falls off your plate?” Riley asked.

“He can’t hear us, you have to commute puns with yourself.”

“An esca-pea! Why didn’t the skeleton not go to the dance? Because he had no body to go with! Knock knock, who’s there? Boo. Boo who? Don’t cry it’s  only me!”

“I don’t think this is working…”

“Well fine, I’ll bring out my own creation. What do you call a police sheep that has recently been to a barbeque? Hot fuzz.”

“...”

“You guys are so annoying, but I just can’t get you off my mind.”

“Why thank you, that’s such a nice compliment~”

“We’ve only been trying to help…”

“It was a pun, I didn’t think you guys would be so rattled, you don’t even have a skeleton!”

“With enough puns he’ll surely drop out of the bushes in agony!”

“He’ll be so rustled if he falls out of the bushes!”

“I’m going to plant the seeds of doubt about his sanity in this forest.”

“I’ll find the root of the problem here, I’m sure of it.”

“Come on cav, don’t be a shrub.”

“Sweet memes are made with bees… no idea why I said that.”

“You must be a new fruit in the bowl, because I haven’t seen you A-rind here.”

“Can’t take these puns? Well grow up and grab the problem by the roots.”

“I’ll leaf you alone in this forest, if you just get me to where I want to be.”

“Don’t wanna be a weed here, but I’m really getting rooted into these puns and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop.”

“I’m going to stay firmly planted on the ground from now on.”

“I don’t think this is working. At all.”

“I noticed, I think it’s time to leaf… I think these puns are really growing on me.”

“Stop, just, please, stop…”

“I agree, one Joker is enough… but there isn’t enough Poison Ivy's, y'know I don’t even care anymore, I’m gunna take this problem by the roots… back to the school.”

“Wait, are you sure?”

“Of course not, I’m not that kind of guy. But I’m gonna do it anyway, I won’t stay here and make more puns, more than Tree was way too many.”

“...”

“I know one thing though… I planted my seeds of insanity more than cav’s.”

“Well, if that’s where you’re going... then I recommend trying to be stealthy, considering where you’ll likely have to look.”

“I know… or I could just break into someone’s house… y'know what never mind… again. I’ll just keep searching.”

So Riley searched… and searched… and searched…

And all he found was that trees are nice looking, and the grass makes soft landings… sometimes.

“Maybe we should try staking out a place based on what he’s said before. Like, where he said he would go?”

“If he was going to those places, he would be Mini and if I were to go there I would be seen as a perv myself. I would prefer to just die from head trauma by trying to find him in trees alright?” After he said this, he fell from another tree with a yelp, “Yep… I’m totally gonna feel this later… not that I care anymore.” 

“I should remind you, that you’re running on anime logic. Even if you’re in a terrible hiding place or disguise, it’ll still hide you unbelievably well.”

“Stop, let me get knocked unconscious okay?”

*Yelp*

“OW.”

“Fuck it, maybe Cav will let me sleep now.” Riley got up, and walked past a tree… and proceeded to fall under it unconscious.

“At that moment, the narrator who initially jumped in to help Riley became rather annoyed with him, and decided to stake out a nearby lingerie store, hoping to find Colin, for Riley’s sake.”

“He also decided to ask the other narrator if they wanted to help.”

“One, you’re speaking out loud when you should be speaking the  _ official Narration speech  _ which would lack speech bubbles. Two, why not just summon him with your, oh I don’t know,  **Narrator Powers™** ?”

“I got use to speaking out loud. And I thought it would be more interesting to try to find him instead of summon him. After all, summoning him seems pretty cheap, don’t you think?”

“Do you think this will still be amusing to the readers or is it getting old and played out?”

“It’ll probably get played out, but Riley isn’t exactly in any hurry to move this section of the plot along, so it may have to go on for a bit.”

Colin, having been waiting on the roof of a lingerie store, hoping to ambush Riley and cause amusing shenanigans, became bored of waiting and decided to look for Riley, only to find him passed out under a tree. He sighed. “Wow, this is just… pitiful.” He raised a hand, and Riley’s limp body fell into a portal. “Well, with that done, nobody can say I’ve never done anything kind. Now, I’m going back to that roof, it was surprisingly comfortable.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and riley goes off to the side story "Ow". honestly i have no idea what they did this chapter, nor am i planning on reading it. - H


	7. Deep Shit Happens

_ PM from: Haley _

_ “Yo I’m done. Where the fuck are you?” _

A screen popped up in front of Colin, displaying a message.

Colin sat up, the screen moving with him. “Where the hell did…?” He looked around. There was nothing but the cityscape around him, and the warm roof of the lingerie store. “Well, guess it has something to do with Tsun…”

_ PM from: Colin _

_ “On the roof of a lingerie store. It’s weirdly nice. Can we leave now?” _

_ PM from: Haley _

_ “Real descriptive. You’re still in Mitakihara, right? I’ll find you eventually. Is Riles there?” _

_ PM from: Colin _

_ “Haven’t been paying attention to properly where, so I’m not sure. Riley ain’t here though. Shame, I thought I could cause some funny things with him here.” _

_ —— _

“Goddammit. Okay so it’s time for a treasure hunt with an underwhelming prize. Or would it be a whelming prize? So we know he’s at a delicates store, and it’s either a standalone or a strip mall, it can’t be a shopping mall because he’s on the roof of it specifically.

_ For thinking things through [Deduction] leveled up! _

“Shut up. Anyways let’s go back to the park we were at and see what is the closest shopping area.”

After retracing her steps back to where she had last left her companions Haley looked for any shopping area’s that fit Colin’s meager description.

_ PM from: Haley _

_ “Listen, you got anything better for a description than simply ‘underwear store’?” _

_ PM from: Colin _

_ “I can see a… I think it’s an inn? It has steam rising from the other side, so it might have an onsen. That help at all?” _

“And the location becomes clearer. So now we know that it’s gotta have an outdoor bath, you wouldn’t be able to see the steam otherwise. Ahh I should probably ask a local for help then… But what if they think I’m weird, I mean how will I phrase the question, ‘i got lost on my way back to my hotel and can’t figure out where it is? Name, oh no I don’t remember the name, just the fact that it had an outdoor bath.’ What if he’s wrong about the inn part? What if it’s just a public bath, then I’ll be on a wild goose chase! And what if it’s actually in one of the seedy parts of town, I mean how reputable is a standalone delicates store meant to be, this isn’t the same as having a LaSenza in a mall, this is on a totally different level! I don’t want them to look at me weird, but the probably already are I mean I’m talking to myself and freaking out over nothing in a public space, oh why does this have to happen to me, this is worse than that time I got lost in White Rock!!!” Haley had gone from a standing position to a crouched one, panicked words coming out in incomprehensible stream.

_ PM from: Colin _

_ “So, decided to get off my lazy/comfortable ass and check, it was actually smoke from a far-off ironworks. Also, there are a fair few other buildings around. Looks like a stripmall. Hope it helps! <3” _

_ PM from: Haley _

_ “k cool” _

“I’m going to die.”

——

It was surprisingly easy to find out where the ironworks was located, and by extension the strip mall it was renting a space from. The only difficult part was the getting to the roof. With no seeable dumpsters around the back or conveniently placed ledges those without flight capabilities were left with the civilians that trawled the stores.

_ PM from: Colin _

_ “Find it yet?” _

_ PM from: Haley _

_ “i’m going to buy an axe to split your head open with you flying trash lord” _

Haley glared at the message that appeared in front of her as she browsed the ironworks wares. A baseball bat, a couple of knives, and a nerf gun were not going to cut it when you’re a magical girl who will literally die if you don’t kill your peers. There was a variety of armour, swords, and cooking implements on the walls but nothing that screamed “Tsun” to the puella magi.

“Hey do you have any sort of axes?”

“I have a hatchet, is that good enough?”

“Sure, I’ll pay by card.”

_ PM from: Colin _

_ “That hurts, Haley. And not physically, but deep in my soul. Wherever that is. Anyway, need help with anything?” _

_ From repeated actions your [Jump] skill has leveled up _

_ From repeated actions your [Jump] skill has leveled up _

_ From repeated actions your [Jump] skill has leveled up _

_ From repeated actions your [Jump] skill has leveled up _

“FUCKING FINALLY!” Haley grabbed hold of the roof, finally able to jump high enough to grasp it. She struggled to pull herself up, but eventually managed. “Curse you, lack of upper arm strength!”

Huffing she glared at the tiny god tier that laid above the stores. “Why the fuck did you have to be on the most difficult to get to roof in the damn city? Most difficult, difficultest… something.”

“You seem upset, did somethin-”  Colin jerked his head to the side as an ornate hatchet flew past and embedded itself in the roof. 

“SHIT! FUCK! THE HELL ARE YOU!?” Colin shouted, pulling out his wand, flaring with a shadowy blue aura.

“Who the fuck do you think I am trash lord Cavin. I told you I’d look different. Now do I  _ want _ to know why you’re atop an underwear store or should I message Pizza?”

Colin looked closer at the random 15 year old in front of him. “Tsun? THIS is what you go with? THIS?” He yelled, grumbling slightly in his throat.

“Well in the words of cLick cRack ‘growing up is my worst nightmare’~ I’d rather stay a immortal magical girl than some lame and normal almost 20 year old. Plus everyone knows that magical girls are middle school students when they first transform! Plus think of all the cheaper tickets I can get! Youth fare here I come~”

“Oh…” Colin said, his expression becoming slightly longer than normal.

“What’s wrong? Sad that I’m jailbait now? You should get new interests.” Haley’s expression stayed blank throughout that whole sentence, not even the slightest inflection in her voice.

“Mmm… So, what now, another world or something…?”

“What about ‘za?”

“Who?”

“‘Za, the memester, vegan boy, wait that actually sounds like a really lame superhero, could you imagine Riley running around in kevlar trying to convert people to veganism, I’d pay to watch that shit show. But not much, after all I’m basically livin la vida broke-a.”

“Oh, right, him. Hmm, where did I leave him? …Oh, right, Terraria.” Colin half-heartedly lifted his hand, opening a portal above them that spit out Pizza. “There, found him.”

“I still don’t see why you used that gender-change potion, it wasn’t in the script!”

“It was in my script, and why are you starting to talk to me now? I literally killed a fake Cthulhu… three times and now you speak to me?”

“Because you going to that world so soon also wasn’t part of the script! Seriously, I have no idea what my bosses are up to but they really need to revise this stupid thing. And the only reason I wasn’t there is because I got caught up yelling at them for… quite a while.”

“How does an omnipresent voice get a job anyway? And what do you even get paid in?”

“Look, we can go over this later, maybe, but right now I recommend looking to your left, cause you’ve just been laying on the ground yelling at the sky like a lunatic for a few seconds now.”

“..... Nice hat.” Haley stared, stunned at the new arrival. “Did it hurt when you fell?”

“I never thought I’d say this, but I kinda wish you were a guy right now, cause then me saying ‘keep it in your pants’ would make sense…” Colin rolled his eyes, still upset at the change in Haley’s appearance.

“Dude I hit on everyone platonically. Or I just hit them. It’s a simple concept.”

“Regardless, any more talk like that, and I teleport you into a yuri.”

“Thanks person who looks a little like Tsun but younger. Hey Cav.”

“Yo~ I’m guessing you’re what Riles turned into what with his obsession with rule 63.”

Colin opened a portal below the now-female Riley, pulling her in, and quickly closed it. “Nope, I ain’t dealing with anyone else changing their appearance. I prefer my friends look like themselves.” Colin crawled to one corner of the roof, and simply laid there in the fetal position.

“Wow you’s a punk ass bitch. You think they got air where ya sent ‘em?”

“Don’t know, don’t care, I just don’t want to see any more of my friends changing themselves.” He said, still laying there, tears rolling down his face.

“Get rekt’d.”

“Why are you so much more terrible now? I liked you before you became a magical girl, you were nicer…”

“Dude no, I was exactly like this before. You just knew me over the internet so you didn’t hear all the terrible song references. I regularly said stuff like ‘gg’ and ‘get rektd’ in chat though. You don’t listen to the shit I do and not get a sailor’s mouth.”

“Why is it that all the friends I have in real life are always awful…?”

“Because you’re the same. You just shoved Pi- Riley into a portal because they did something to their body that you didn’t like. Maybe the phrase ‘do unto others as you would have done onto yourself’ actually has merit, who knows. I talk like a terrible person because I absolutely abhore myself, and want others to do the same, but at the same time have kind actions because deep down I know that for all my negativity I just want to matter. Maybe you need to take a step back and view your own situation to figure out why you’re the way you are too.” Haley crossed her arms, giving Colin a blank stare.

“I just don’t want someone to be upset as they are, especially a friend… but if I like a person, it’s for who they are. When they change, it hits me on two fronts. They didn’t like who they were before, and I hate to think that a friend thought that way, and it feels like I didn’t even know them. That who they are now is the real them, and the person I’d gotten to know wasn’t real…”

“Listen, Colin. No one is happy with who they are, that’s what drives our desire to better ourselves. You can be content with who you current represent, but eventually you’ll want something more, or different, and that’s natural. But just because they’ve changed doesn’t mean you don’t know them, it means that now you’ll know a different side of them. The multifaceted person that you are, that I am, that everyone on the street is, is meant to change and evolve. Sometimes you won’t like that change, but that doesn’t mean you close yourself off. You learn, and understand who they are, and if you look past appearances you’ll find the person you’re friends with, the person who you cherish just wants you to accept them as they are.” Haley took Colin in a hug, refusing to let go.

Colin didn’t even try to shake her off. “Could you at least only use the 15 year old look only as a disguise? Regardless of anything, it’s still weird, and this is kind of awkward.”

Sighing, Haley ran a hand through her hair changing the colour from a dull black back to a rich brown. “To do a whole self recreation costs too much magic. I don’t have much to begin with, so I have to conserve what remains in order to stay with you guys. I can revert some of the colours but I prefer to stay how I am now.”

“Oh, then nevermind.” Colin stood up, looking no less depressed. He raised a hand, causing a portal to appear above them again. Fem-Riley fell out again, landing on her back.

“Thanks for bringing me back… there was a guy who wanted to be a fairy and thought I was one…” Riley said as she got up, brushing off dust from her purple armour, “Now since Cav is here… and you now have brown hair… that person who looked a little like Tsun actually is Tsun.”

“Okay! Now that this band of miscreants is back together, what do you suppose we do?”

“Kill all male characters in Dance with Devils?”

“How about something productive instead?”

“Turn Mamoru Chiba into a girl?” Riley giggled manically at the thought.

“Hmm… Any other suggestions, Cav?”

“Not really, didn’t we say it was Riley who had next pick?”

“Ahh, yes. So that means you have to make a decision from your two ch-”

“OR… we could go beat up some people in Skullgirls, defeat the Skullgirl and gain ultimate lich powers!”

“It’s your decision, let’s get another lich on the team then!”

Riley cheered, flying a few feet into the air while fist pumping.

“Why am I the moral center of this group?”

“Because I’m the delusional one and Riles is the memester~ We’re both unqualified! PlusImayhavegottenridofmymoralitytoreducenegativitycorruption. Ehehe~”

Colin just closed his eyes and held the bridge of his nose. “I should be more surprised. I should really be more surprised.”

“You have learned… as one once said… you can’t stop the rock… not even stalling it will work. I have no idea how that fits into this but I said it anyway.” Riley said.

“My point is proven.”

“Whatever, but before we go, I need to talk to someone.” Colin said as he blipped out of existence.

“See ya later, space cowboy.”


	8. Beat Up Love Day

“So what’s with the new look?”

“Well… female protagonists are awesome… and when I changed gender I still had the facial hair. So I sorta just got a new hairstyle and this one looked good in the catalog the Stylist gave me. Worth the gold coins though.”

“Oh fuck right, I wanted you to bring some funds from Terraria.”

“Well I got some stuff in my pockets… hold on.. I have… twenty-two gold coins, ninety-three silver coins, twenty copper coins… that’s it in straight money… but I have these Luminite bars, and they are some weird space metal that someone oughta pay good money for, if you made bullets out of this stuff it can go through at least fifty people with the right gun.” Riley pulled out around twenty silvery-green ingots and a large pile of coins from her pockets. 

“Ka-ching! Wow you really came through on that one. Lets abuse the system using this, or like let’s make sure we have money so that we can eventually overthrow the flawed system that controls all aspects of a human’s life.”

“So take over the world by using people’s greed to their advantage? Sound good, if we go back to that terraria world I have stacks of metal bars too, so if we need any more money that's covered too.”

“I know what we’re doing tonight, Riley.”

“Does it include something I can laugh madly at? I’ve been practicing on hordes of pirates after I stole their treasure maps and they came back for them… they like carrying furniture made of gold… we can sell that stuff too.”

Colin reappeared. “Hey, sorry for the wait, just had to convince someone of an idea. Unfortunately they ran with it… All I’m gonna say is we should leave before things get really weird, especially for Tsun. Not sure that little jackass’ll make good on our deal.”

“Also, you two haven’t said anything that’ll make me want to throw you both into a yuri while I was gone, have you?” 

“Well there is a pile of Luminite bars on the roof, if there was something like that it would be super… y'know what… no. Not going to finish that.”

Colin just looked at Riley, confused and concerned. “Anyway, like I said, we should probably go before things get weird. We’re going to the Skullgirls universe next, right?”

“Correct. Now like every good fighting game character you must have a good intro fight, so… Off to Little Innsmouth, we must fight the Undead Cat!”

“I’d question that, but there is little time,” Colin snapped his fingers, a portal appearing before the group, “OK, into the space hole, into the space hole before-” a loud crashing sound erupted from behind the group. “Oh shit, INTO THE HOLE! NOW!”

“AHHHHHHHHHH OKAY.” Riley ninja dashed into the portal… after recollecting her ingots.

“Tsun! In! Now!”

“What the fuck did you do!?” Haley jumped feet first into the portal, screaming at Colin all the way down.

Colin closed the portal behind them. “I did nothing. I convinced an alien rabbit-cat to do something, and he just ran with it.” Colin turned around, only catching a quick glimpse of pink before he blinked out of the universe.

\-----

Haley and Riley popped out in the middle of Little Innsmouth, as Colin blinked in beside them. He looked nervous and was clearly feigning a smile.

Riley quickly got up and started jogging on the spot “Well, time to go beat up a cat… or get beat up by a cat. AWAY!” With a cloud of dust, she went off running elsewhere.

“What is he, King?” Haley shook her head before following at a more subdued pace.

“Whatever, let’s just follow him and see how much damage he causes. AndcompletelyforgetwhatIdid.” Colin cracked his neck, and floated off behind.

“Waitwait… I don’t know my way around here, you literally see a single place in this entire town due to it being a stage. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO FIND A RESTAURANT IN THIS WOODEN WALKWAY INFESTED CHINATOWN.” Riley slowly grinded herself to a halt, “It’s also extremely lucky I didn’t run into anyone.”

It was then she noticed a Tram cart driving past below her, this made her smile as she remembered a few of the stages key background decorations. Using her Nebula Mantle she gently drifted down onto the cart, she then pulled out a blooded knife and vanished from view.

‘Gotta love Psycho Knife.’ She thought as the cart moved through the town, clueless about its new passenger.

“Uh, should we follow her, or…?” Colin asked Haley, having no clue what to do next.

“Or we could just ask where the catgirl is. Riley has more knowledge of this area than us, but I don’t want to wait for the next tram to catch a ride. We ask and then use your void powers to erase the memory of us from the answerer.”

“Why bother erasing the memory? There doesn’t seem like much of a point.” Colin looked around, noticing a pale woman in a nurses outfit. “How about we ask her?”

“I wanna be like the men in black!” Haley put her hands together to make a finger gun and pushed her back against a nearby wall.

“Nooo, let’s just stick with being… not totally crazy, ‘kay?” Colin began walking towards the nurse woman. “Umm, hello, I was wondering, have you seen a cat-girl running around anywhere? A friend of ours is looking for her, and she doesn’t really seem to think things through very well.” The nurse turned towards him, Colin having a fairly goofy grin on, trying to be nice but failing at basic human emotions. “So, someone else is looking for her. Why don’t you tell me what you know about her, and maybe I don’t cut you open.”

“OK, hostile.” Colin teleported a few feet back, which, much to his chagrin, seemed to peak the nurses interest. “My, my, I may just have to cut you open regardless, just to see what makes you tick.” The nurse pulled a scalpel out from somewhere on her person. “Oh god, not another fight. Haley, mind helping?”

“But isn’t that against the rules? I’ll be an assist don’t worry~” Haley pulls the knives out of her soul gem and hands them to Colin. “Take care of them, will you?”

“Well, I guess that’s better than nothing…” Colin teleported a few more feet back. “But, I won’t be needing these.” He threw the knives into the ground, a cry of ‘my babies!’ came from Haley, dark energy flaring around his hands, “The darkness called, it says,” throwing his arms to the side, claws formed of a dark blue, shadowy energy, “‘Snick, snick, bitch’.” The nurse smiled, “Time to operate!”

Valentine started the combat, throwing a pair of scalpels at Colin,  which were easily blocked through the use of a portal. Colin retaliated with a rush of claw strikes, leading into an uppercut.  Though she took damage from the claw strikes a quick dodge let her avoid the final strike and retaliate with her bone saw.  Caught off-guard by the retaliation, Colin shifted his claws to wings  like those of a dragon, shouting “Drake Spiral!” during the move.  _ Why did I say that!? _

“You  _ really _ are interesting! Let’s finish this quick then.” An IV Pole nailed Colin in the side, winding him, another strike to his knees, and finally a blow to his head, sending him to the floor.

Using a portal, Colin quickly recovered from the knockdown. “Not bad.” He threw a claw down, bringing the other up, followed by a rising strike from the dragon wings. This time, he shouted “Rising Wyrm!”.  _ The hell is happening!?  _ “Tsun, do a thing, please!”

“Magical girls represent!” Haley jumped into the fight, transforming mid-leap,though her uniform looked less magical girl dress up and more hoodie and pleated skirt now, and withdrew the bat from her soul gem. She leapt back into the air and swung the bat with straight towards Valentines head. “Batter up beat down!” With her attack done she de-transformed and withdrew to a safe distance, “Good luck~”

“Heh, an opening…” Colin rushed trough, claws as a drill. From behind, he unleashed another flurry of claw strikes, flung up by an uppercut. “This is it.” He threw himself into a forward spin, claws extended. He led further into “Drake Spiral!” and threw Valentine back to the ground with an overhead spin kick. “This is getting boring.” Colin raised a hand, “Great Bahamut, I call on your aid.” A massive portal appeared above the battlefield, through which the enormous form of the Father of Eidolon appeared. “You call?” Bahamut asked, firing his Megaflare, as Colin called out “May our powers merge.” once more opening a portal, this time in the way of the dragons breath. He opened another below Valentine, and continued with several more, continuing the beam through each portal.

Valentine lay unconscious, and Bahamut had flown off. “Not worth the effort…” Colin said before floating back to Haley. “Well, she was no help. Maybe you should ask someone this time.”

Haley walked a few blocks until she saw someone who looked appropriately underwhelming. “You just need to find the background characters! They can’t fight~” She tapped the man on the shoulder, “Excuse me sir, I’m from out of town and a friend was suppose to meet me around here, she should be about yay high and has cat ears.”

“Ah, you must mean that cat girl. She works at the *****. It’s just down the road a bit. Make a left at the third intersection and you’ll be there in no time.”

“Thank kyuu so much! By the way that is a very nice chair you have.” She waved to Colin and started going in the direction the man had told her. Colin caught up to her.


	9. It's Murder Day Everyone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley and Cavin weren't able to stop me, so uhhh
> 
> TW: Death, Decapitation
> 
> gomen -Tsun

The duo eventually made it to the restaurant that Ms Fortune worked at where they saw  no-one, not even the slightest hint of a cat girl.

“Were… were we lied to…?”

“Neeeh~? Do people actually do that? How mean!” Haley puffed up her cheeks and stamped her foot against the ground. Exhaling she looked around the area, “Well maybe we can get info inside? Oh wait!” Her face lit up as she made a motion with her hands, a translucent blue screen popped into existence before her.

——

_ PM from: Haley _

_ boof _

Riley, who was now out of Little Innsmouth after finding no clues on Ms Fortune herself, saw this message and jumped back slightly.

“Umm… what is this Gamer ability shit? Oh… she wants me to reply to this.”

——

_ PM from: Riley _

_ Nya. _

“I got a hold of ‘em!”

_ PM from: Haley _

_ where r u? we’re lost _

_ PM from: Riley _

_ Maplecrest, nice place… took a while to get here. _

“Maplecrest? Hey do you know where that is Cav?”

“No.”

“Aww, now what’ll we do? Last time you asked for directions we got in a fight, and when I asked we got lost! I wish we had a map!” At the word map a translucent screen came into being showing the surrounding areas. “Oh yeah, that’s a game feature. Oops~”

The duo followed the map towards their friend, only making a few wrong turns, before they came upon Riley fighting a strange… being? The being moved in an inhuman way, crawling along the ground  towards Riley, who was retaliating with rapid throws of pink energy from a pink and white gauntlet.

“Bad time to make a musical reference?” Haley stared at the scene before her, mildly confused.

“Probably, but what does it matter, make one regardless if you want.” Colin looked back to the fight, just in time to see Riley being sliced into by the blades on the back of the shambling entity she was fighting. “Huh, we didn’t need her, did we?”

“Hehe, looks like it’s about to be a… girl fight!” Haley made vague karate motions before point at Riley. “Tag me in homegirl!”

“Yes, tag Tsun is it!” Riley quickly clambered to her feet and jumped out of combat, letting Haley take the lead.

“Well, if that’s how it’s gonna be, I think I’ll go… do some things real quick.” Colin said as he blinked out of the world.

Haley walked towards the being that had been fighting Riley. “Hello~ It’s so nice to meet you, I’m the traveling magical girl, and you are?”

“Her name is Painwheel! Nice girl if she didn’t have all those modifications.” Riley called from the sidelines.

“Well then Miss Painwheel, for the crime of damaging a precious person I bestow the punishment of grievous harm.” Haley withdrew her knives and launched herself forward, aiming for Painwheel’s arms.

“GRAHGRRRRRR” Painwheel replied, before attempting to block the attack with her back blade, which successfully blocks the girl’s knives.

Grinning wider Haley pulled out the nerf gun and pointed at her opponent. Pulling the trigger caused a large sphere to explode out of the barrel, hitting Painwheel at point blank range. Haley backed up, putting away her previous weapons to use the hatchet instead.

“I think we’ll need something a little bigger for this fight.” The hatchet was enveloped by bronze energy, turning into a dual bladed axe instead.

Surprised at the sudden change, Painwheel was open for a hit  and Haley gladly took the opportunity. With a heavy chop to their back Haley both dented the blade and sent the girl to the ground.

“Hey, Riley~ How hurt can she be?”

“Well she was modified to fight Skullgirls so I think she can probably handle a fairly heavy beat down” Riley answered.

As Riley finished her sentence, Painwheel viciously spun the blades on her back, attempting to remove Haley, and split her in two.

“Not quite what I meant,” Haley tried to block the blade with the handle of her axe but was to slow and got a deep cut to the arm. “Talk about troublesome~ Rile’s since you’re the expert here let me ask you, does she ever get better?”

“In order to give a short answer I will just say… no she isn’t, life will not end very well for her.” Riley said with slight sadness.

“Then there’s no problem with what I’m about to do.” Haley kneed Painwheel in the gut and placed a hand on her head, “I think you’ve had enough movement for a while.” With a flash of bronze Painwheel fell to the ground, unable to move her limbs. “I hope that your end brings a better beginning.” Carefully positioning her axe, Haley raised it up and let it fall upon Painwheel’s neck, enhanced edge easily cutting through muscle and bone.


	10. I Don't Like The Military

“That’s right fear me!” Haley yelled at the crowd, axe still lodged in the ground. “I killed one of your champions, one of your player’s. Know that you are even easier.”

“Well holy fuck, didn’t see that one coming… Or did I? That question most certainly would have lead to this.” Riley thought aloud.

Onlookers stared at the scene in shock, some mumbled about the violent end, others how the monster deserved it. A scream broke out from the middle of the crowd as a black, statue-like creature began to form. 

“Perfect.” With a manic grin on her face Haley stowed away her axe in return for her knives and ran towards the creature. The crowd scattered, terrified of both the strange statue and the girl who had just murdered in cold blood.

Meanwhile, a screen appeared before Riley, though instead of the usual text interface, it was a video screen, on which stood Colin in what appeared to be a very large vent.

“Hey, Was just checking in. Still working on a thing, and decided to get the toughest item on the list first, how are things…” before he finished, a muffled woman’s voice shouted behind him, “Find that little bastard! We can’t afford any more setbacks!” 

“Er, how are things on your end? Heh heh…”

“Tsun killed Painwheel and a strange black thing just appeared… somewhere… Tsun is fighting it. How are you, I heard someone in the background are they looking for you?”

“Er, yeah, I may have stolen some, uh, interesting tech from an all-girls-through-technicality high school science club. ...Don’t ask.”

“Well okay then…” Riley said, confused.

Haley walked back over to Riley, carrying a small black cube in her hand. “I knew something good would come from a little friendly murder, now I have a purification source.” Detransforming, Haley held up a rather cloudy soul gem to the cube, watching the corruption disappear from her soul. “Oh hey Cav- wait how are you doing that, that should be my power.”

“OK, you caught me, sorta,” The border of the screen expanded and distorted, eventually becoming a ring of lightly flaring blue energy. “It’s just a sealed portal. Can’t go through it, but you can see through it. Handy, huh?”

As he finished explaining, a shout came from behind the portal, “Hey! I found him!” There was a sudden, loud crash as the vent around him shook. “He’s… in the … ergh, vents!” Colin raised a hand out of view of the portal. “Yeah, I may be a bit. You two should try and figure out something to do in the meantime.” Colin then pulled an incredibly large black marker from a portal. “I need to do one thing, then I’ll get to leaving this world. See you then.” He stepped out of the portal’s view.

“Yeah, ‘kay.” Haley waved an arm at the portal only for it to flop backwards, barely intact. “Oh right Carol did a number on me, forgot to heal.”

“I have a health potion you could drink if you want.” 

“Naw dog, I’m good.” Setting the arm in proper position Haley focused her energy on the wound, healing it in seconds.

“It’s a good thing you didn’t accept the potion, it tastes like dirt and regurgitated lemon.”

“You bastard! Get back over here so I can crush you like the bug you are!” A shout came from the portal again. Colin stepped back into view. “Yeah, shut up. So, Tsun, what exactly was that thing Pizza said you were fighting?”

“It was a statue man called a Wraith. Creatures of despair created when there is a lack of Witches due to Madoka’s wish. It’s easier to bring a wraith to existence than to breed a Witch so it was the most likely choice. Never actually seen one before though.”

“Huh. neat. And Pizza, how are things going with the Skullheart search?”

“Well I already know where it is, under the church. So we just need to go to the church, probably fight Double and then fight Marie.”

“Well, you have fun with that, I have to get out of a building full of crazy girls the size of skyscrapers. Something’s interfering with my portals, and I can’t create actually traversable portals. This might take a while, ‘specially since I just kinda defaced a higher-up.” Colin turned the portal around. Stuck up to her shoulders in the vent was a very pissed off looking red-haired girl, with marker drawn around her eyes like glasses, and a stupid fake mustache on her upper lip.

“I’m tempted to google that but also terrified. Let’s go kill Double.”

“Yeah we should leave before police show up… or Parasoul, they are both quite bad.”

“Parasoul? What does she have a sentient umbrella?” Haley commented as she pulled on her arm, elbow letting out a loud cracking sound.

“Yes she does, it kinda has many eyes and has explosive tears. There is also the fact she has a squad called the Egrets and currently they would be going after anything ‘suspiciously Skullgirl-ey’ and we are quite suspicious.”

“Well, have fun. I have to go try to not be stepped on. Or worse. Ergh…” Colin walked away from the portal, snapped his fingers, and it closed.

Haley turned towards Riley. “You know the way, right?”

“Well in the game there is just a bunch of stages and one of them is the Grand Cathedral, so no…”

“Got it, [map] it is.” Haley made the motions of enlarging a screen to increase the size of the map and scoured for any place named Grand Cathedral, Riley of course just saw her staring intently at thin air. Spotting their destination in the Suburbs area she set a waypoint and turned to her companion. “It’s about two kilometers NNE, it should be easy, just follow the arrow.”

“Let’s go!” With a spring in her step Haley followed her mapped path while humming a small tune.

“Okay I’m going to follow you then…” Riley said as she went the same direction… before going into a full on sprint after noticing a familiar black umbrella emblem.

——

The journey was not without peril, Riley kept hiding whenever an umbrella shaped object entered their field of vision, Haley stopped to pet no less than seven stray cats, all in all the walk which should have only been an hour was lengthened considerably.

“Are we there yet?” Haley complained, “I’m tired of walking!”

“You have the map, you know better than me.” Riley droned as she shuffled behind her friend.

“... Oh.” The magical girl looked down to her feet and noticed the arrow facing the opposite direction from earlier. “We passed it, maybe five blocks back?”

Riley screamed internally, and slightly externally too.


	11. Chapter 11

While two thirds of the Chaotic Triad were getting lost, the final one was having an adventure of their own.

Colin had been stuck in the vents of the school since those damn bitches shrank him. It had been too long to undo it, and his Mini spell was less than effective. Every opening he came across showed another potential danger, and even the vents weren’t safe, with the science clubs experiments running around. If only something in the area wasn’t interfering with his powers so much. Thankfully he managed to come across a strange book which allowed him to pull together massive balls of dark energy, which made things fairly easy. He had no idea what the book was, but if he could pull off a murder orb thing in his current situation, he was willing to take it.

As he traversed the vent, he thought how he could get out of this mess. The C-class members would likely have been sent to secure exits, considering what exactly he had stolen. He sighed. Escape seemed nearly impossible. Unless some area was just outside the range of the interference. He decided that just trying to leave through the front door was not an option. Repeatedly attempting to open portals further and further from the school, he felt one open. Creating a communication portal, he looked through. What he saw was a large pool.  _ Of all places  _ he thought. Rushing through the vents, he prayed he would manage to get there quickly.

After almost being trampled by practicing track team members, Colin finally made it to the pool building. After all this time, he was finally so close to getting out of this hell of a universe. The safe zone was just on the other end of the pool, all he needed to do was make it. He rushed through the air, the scent of chlorine heavy around him. He had barely made it a quarter of the way across the pool when a bell went off.  _ Please, not here  _ He begged to himself. Unfortunately, the universe is cruel, as, from a door half way along the pool which he had not noticed, a group of students came in, likely for swimming practice.  _ Son of every bitch!  _ Before he even had time to hope they wouldn’t, half the group turned towards the far end of the pool; his salvation. Swiftly dodging between the tree-like legs of the swimmers, he prayed that none of the noticed him. As he approached the far end of the pool, his eyes lit up, he was finally free! But, almost like a bolt from a jackass writer, a shout rang out “Ew! A bug!” Knowing it was too late, he looked up, the massive foot of one of the swimmers was falling towards him. He was right on the corner of the pool, and he tried to open a portal, praying for it to be far enough. The foot collided with him mid-air, bringing him down with it towards the floor.  _ Not like this, not like this, any way but this!  _ Screamed through his head. A small, black and blue, swirling gate appeared just below him, and the foot threw him through it.

——

“How convenient that we showed up at a time no-one else is in the Cathedral.” Riley said as she looked around.

“This is gonna be like any horror movie where the wicked voodoo item is below the floorboards, right?” Haley said, pulling out her axe.

“Marie is in the Crypt and the Crypt’s entrance is in this Cathedral, so yes.”

“Do you know where the entrance is specifically or are we gonna tear this place up, because if it’s option two we’ll need a bomb. On that note, do you have any explosives in that there hammerspace?”

“These are just Terraria Pockets, not hammerspace. And every good Terraria player carries bombs wherever they go but there is no need to blow the place up, we just need to beat up Double and I’m sure we’ll conveniently find the entrance just like everyone else does.

“Your idea is less fun, but sure. Now where is this ‘Double’?”  As Haley finished answering the question a ‘nun’ with her eyes closed and hands held in prayer started walking towards them. Riley instantly pulled out a green sniper rifle and shot the woman in the head.

“Jegus christ since when did you become a US army men! What’s with this shoot first ask never approach!”

“Since I know that is Double in disguise... and I wanted to get the first hit.” as Riley said this the nun’s ‘dead’ body started to writhe and wriggle.

Haley swiftly pulled out her gun and aimed it as the mass. “Eek! Property change!” With a flash of bronze the gun gained flame decals on it’s sides. She pulled the trigger and let out a torrent of flames towards the mass.

“Yes, we kill it with fire!” Riley called as she pulled out a flamethrower with a candy cane colour style and started to let loose torrents of flame at Double too.

In reaction to this Double screamed in both pain and anger before ‘jumping’ out of the way of both streams of flame. In a few moments the mass of flesh switched into the form of an umbrella wielding woman and fired a stream of bullets from a pistol, which Riley quickly tried to dash away from.

“I’m leaving this fight to you Riley, strut your stuff!” With those words Haley jumped onto a large statue and set to watching the events. “But don’t worry, I’m always an assist!”

“Alright then, it's just you and me, you disgusting copycat.” Riley started off by firing away with her flamethrower once more, but quickly stopped once she noticed that the gel tank fueling the weapon was all but empty, “Darn.”

Double took this chance to charge in and send out a rapid stream of kicks, flicking between different forms after each one, the last kick was stopped however when the shifter was met with the gong of metal from an Ankh embroidered shield.

“You want to fight up close? I can comply with that.” Riley pulled out a bladed claw from her armour’s pocket and began to rend through the monstrosities flesh before quickly switching weapon again and sending the shapeshifter back with a blast from a black and purple shotgun which hummed with a dark energy. Double did not let range be her enemy and quickly start shifting between projectile shooting forms.

Then all of a sudden… she vanished under the ground. From the shadows of the Cathedral the thrum of an engine was heard, which Riley reacted to by pulling up her shield. A few moments later a comical-sized convertible car full of passengers went careening towards her, yet the vehicle was somehow blocked by the shield and only sent Riley backwards slightly from the force. After a moment the vehicle vanished and Double once again slimed her way out from the floor.

“It’s time to finish this,” Riley pulled out what appeared to be a slightly less than human sized shark with a minigun barrel coming out its mouth and an Uzi, she then started to fire a swarm of green bullets from each weapon, “This is Unreal!”

The girl tossed the weapons on the floor and pulled out a orange crystal blade and a strange spear made of solar energy and charged at Double at a fast speed, throwing the spear at the stunned blob of flesh, which burst into flames, once Riley reached the burning Double she started swinging the crystal sword in arcs “Maybe something of legends!”

To finish Riley proceeded to drop those weapons too and pulled out a shining pyramid and aimed it directly at Double. A beam of unstoppable rainbow energy started firing out from the spinning shape, the energy went directly through Double and with one final cry of indescribable eldritch screams Double was no more, as Riley deactivated the beam she said “More like a Myth.”

“So… how’d I do Tsun?” Riley said while she picked up her dropped weapons and began to put them away.

“Classy, I like it.” Haley then jumped down from the top of the statue and landed on the ground with a large ‘CRACK’. She then fell down and just laid on her back. “I made a mistake. I should have rolled.”

“You want a health potion now?”

“Nope, I’m good. This zombie heals with the power of magic.” All it took was a flash of light and Haley was back on her feet, ready to go. “So the Crypt should open now?”

“It isn’t an automated thing Tsun… we still need to go and find it but now we don’t get a strange lump of shapeshifting flesh trying to get up in our grill while we do so…”

“My suggestion of blowing this place sky high still stands.”


	12. Chapter 12

It took a while but they did eventually find the entrance and now made their way down the stone steps to where Marie was.

“Look at all this ominous blue light… so ominous…” Riley said as she walked down the steps to the lower Crypt area.

“Ain’t blue suppose to set a somber feeling or something? Is that is any way appropriate scene setting around here?”

“All I know is that it’s Skullgirl power so we are getting close.” True to what she said they were very close and soon they were met with the sight of the maid outfit wearing girl known as Marie.

“Yo yo yo, what up home dawg? How’s it chillin’ in the crypt? Oh gog now I wanna shoot myself.” Haley turned away from Marie, hiding her face in her hands.

“Yeah that was a horrible first impression Tsun, what was that?”

Haley let out a whining sound like a kettle when it boils, face turning red.

“You do not belong here.” The echoey voice of Marie called out to them.

“Inhale, exhale… Calm your emotions and focus.” Haley turned back around and opened her eyes, focusing her gaze on Marie. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m the one who rivals a goddess in power, the cause of the universal backlash, the last of the earthbound immortals, and the bad guy. We are here on a mission, a mission for-”

“I’M HERE FOR THAT SKULLHEART OF YOURS. CAN I HAVE IT PRETTY PLEASE?”

Marie looked at Riley as though they were short a few brain cells, “No.”

“Darn.”

“I have no words. But anyways, since you didn’t choose the easy route, how about we have some fun~ And by fun I mean you are about to go through a world of pain~” With a flash of light Haley was transformed and ran towards Marie, axe out. Marie floated slightly to the right, dodging the wild swing.

Marie raised a hand, and suddenly Haley found herself unable to move. Waving her hand towards Riley, she was surprised to see a continued lack of movement from Haley. “What is this? Why won’t you obey me?”

“God complex’s bow to no one!” Haley slowly moved her arms to redeposit her weapon in her soul gem and started taking steps back. “But I’m also a defeatist and know I won’t be able to win this fight. Riley, I choose you!”

“I would say ‘Pika!’ but I hate Pikachu.”

“Then make vague electronic noises.”

“I can do better than that!” With that Riley jumped into the fray, a rather alien looking rocket launcher propped on her shoulders which she began to fire repeatedly at the Skullgirl, strangely they didn’t explode in a regular manner and left a spherical field of electricity where they hit.

Marie ignored the dangerous electricity and threw a hand out, with a cry of ‘Go forth.’ an ominous human skull surrounded in fire went flying towards its master’s enemy, Riley shot it out of the sky rather quickly with a well placed rocket, it seemed Marie was only testing the waters though as she released more of the skulls and sent them in many directions.

“Why…” Riley quickly started trying to dodge the skulls, but found that they were overrunning at an incredible speed and took quite a bit of damage from the spectral flames surrounding them… with included physical trauma thanks to their ramming. Thankfully it seemed that they couldn’t last very long by themselves as they soon turned to dust.

“Time for a change!” Riley quickly returned the launcher into her pockets and pulled out two books, one of them was orange and marked with a golden droplet symbol and the other was pink and marked with a blue trident-like shape.

The triad member pointed both tomes at Marie and a few moments later a swarm of crystal projectiles and… an odd stream of yellow liquid was sent flying at the Skullgirl.

“Fuck this shit I’m out.” Haley promptly turned around and traversed up the ruined stairs behind her.

Riley noticed this out the corner of her eye and frowned slightly, but didn’t let up with her attack which seemed to be doing a reasonable amount of damage as Marie suddenly decided to change her tactics.

The skulls which were surrounding Marie fell to the ground and exploded, which kicked up a cloud of dust and smoke which left Marie unseeable for a few moments, when the dust cleared Riley noticed that there was a shadowy outline of someone behind the Skullgirl, with blue veins accenting it.

‘Phase two?’ Riley questioned to herself.

Marie floated there for a moment, staring down Riley. Her face then twitched as she felt something hit it. Reaching up her hand, she plucked the irritant from her face so she could see what it was. Before she got a good look, a ball of black and purple energy, roughly the size of a baseball, appeared in front of her face and exploded.

Riley was surprised for a second, and even more so when she heard Colin’s voice say “Just obliterate her! Ignore how the game works and just erase her!” from seemingly nowhere.

The girl decided to do just that, and quickly replaced the tomes with... a rainbow sword with a cat head-shaped hilt and proceeded to attack with it rapidly.

Cat heads bounced all over the platform with a trail of rainbows coming from them as they flew carelessly in the air, meowing as they hit something.

Marie couldn’t take the rediculously overpowered cats which kept bashing into her without end, the strikes with the sword itself didn’t help either. A few moments later she fell to the ground, with the skin on her face peeling half away and one socket empty.

“Why?” Marie questioned.

“Because I want to be OP like everyone else.” With one final swing a cat head met with Marie’s skull, which turned to dust… like there was no flesh at all.

“Geez, was it necessary to go that far? Could have been a little quicker; a little less… Brutal? Maybe?”

“I… hadn’t used the Meowmere, I wanted to see how well it would do.”

“Well, whatever, just do your thing and be done with it, there’s something I may need your and Tsun’s help with.”

“Okay fine.” Riley quickly put the ‘Meowmere’ back into her pocket and walked towards the now ominously floating Skull Heart.

“Y’all ready for this crazy wish you creepy Macguffin? Well here it is,” The girl grabbed the skull, uncaring about the ominous blue flames that were around it, “I wish that I had full control over myself when I become the Skullgirl.”

“Can she do that?” A spectral voice called out in Riley’s head.

“She can sister, it seems it took an idiot to outplay us.”

The flames surrounding the heart spread up the girl’s arms and were very quickly encompassing her entire body.

“CAV I HAVE MANY REGRETS, THIS REALLY FUCKING HURTS!” the soon to be Skullgirl screamed.

“The hell am I supposed to do!? You wanted to do this, didn’t you!?”

“I KNOW I WAS JUST TELLING YO- AND THERE GOES MY SPINE!”

“So, you’re going to have all those fancy Skullgirl powers, while being in total control? Sounds like a good deal, though I can’t imagine the ramifications of taking a Macguffin out of it’s universe.”

“I’M SURE IT’LL BE FIN- OH GODDESSES THIS PAIN IS UNDESCRIBAB- YEAH I DON’T THINK THEY MIND, THIS WAS JUST A WAY TO SPEED UP HUMANITY’S DESTRUCTION AND I THINK WITH PEOPLE NOT COMING TOGETHER TO DEFEAT SKULLGIRLS THEY WILL HAVE PLENTY MORE TIME TO KILL EACHOTHER.”

“Huh, um, let me see if I can…” Riley felt a twinge of something over her, which grew back into the pain of the transformation. “Did that do anything?”

“WELL NO IT DIDN’T DO MUCH BUT I THINK IT’S ALMOST DO- yeah it’s done.”

The bundle of ethereal flames that was Riley’s body faded and revealed the changes done to the girl’s form. To start off the cap that rested atop her head had turned to a black and boney colour to them, the previous purple and pink colour of the Nebula armour she had been wearing changed the same way, and were now adorned with a skull motif on each shoulder and edges were licked with the ethereal flames which burned ominously. The Ankh shield she used to have on her arm would also be better described as a ‘Skull shield’ as the previous egyptian symbol was now changed to show the spiked skull that was the Skull Heart and the purple on the shield itself was composed entirely of Skull Heart fire. The previous starry looking Nebula Mantle attached to her back was now much darker, shifting and squirming with various skeletal parts both human and not. To top this off her skin had turned extremely pale, the previous auburn had turned a dull grey and her eyes were now marked with the shape of two halves of a blue skull in each one.

“So how do I look?” She said in a strange echoey voice natural to a Skullgirl.

“Well, I’m not going to mess with you anymore, that’s for sure.”

“Thanks Cav… by the way where the fuck are you?”

“Now that is an interesting question. I recommend… looking on your shoulder.”

Riley did so and noticed the barely visible sight of a midget.

“Hey!”

“Is it over yet?” A voice called out from above. Haley had once again climbed to an extremely high height.

“Yes it is!” Riley called back.

“Good,” Haley used the surrounding rubble to gradually jump down, avoiding injury unlike last time. “Improvement!” She winked and flashed a thumbs up at her friends.

Haley placed a hand beneath her chin, looking over Riley’s changes. “I’ll give you a seven point five outta ten. I don’t know whether to add or take away points for the edge, and it’s obviously inhuman so you can’t really blend in.”

Riley pouted, but very much understood what her friend was saying.

“Can you do any sneaky magic stuff to disguise this?” She asked.

“Hmm… Like I probably can’t change the clothes or anything so you’ll have to get use to punk couture, but appearance wise there might be something? Gimme some specifics on what you want to look like, skin tone, hair colour, eyes don’t really matter do they? Hey I could give you a different nail colour if you wanted.”

“Think we could move on outta here? I mean, we don’t really need to stick around, and I don’t think a flesh-suit fitting is best done in a cathedral basement.”

“Nonsense, what better place to perform demonic acts than a destroyed church, it’s all about aesthetic- wait where the heckie are you?”

“Right here.”

“So you’ve finally voided your presence?”

“OK, now I’m here. Why not take a look at your shoulder?”

Haley looked at the shrunken Colin before trying to wipe him off her shoulder. “Watch the fabric, who knows where your shoes have been!”

“I think the girls who did this to me were less rude.” Colin said as he corrected himself midair.

“Well could any of the girls do this?” Haley pat Colin on the head with one of her fingers and he started to grow in size, gradually returning back to normal.

“That simply, no, but they could have made me my normal height, they were just almost all bitches.” Colin looked down at the strange device on his wrist, sullenly. “Now I don’t have any real reason to test this baby.”

“My deepest condolences.”

“Doesn’t mean I won’t.”

“We really should leave, people did kind of get into a panic about Marie and this huge area filled with Skullgirl power and a destroyed church would most certainly bring all sorts of people.” Riley cut in.

“See, even your subject wants to leave.” Colin turned, opening a portal. “Come on, let’s go, chop, chop, before the real crazies show up.”

“But the aesthetic!” Haley complains as she’s pushed into the portal by Riley.


	13. Chapter 13

The portal opened to a picturesque scene; rustic homes, narrow stairways between buildings, a blue sky overhead. It was a lovely day.

“OK, let’s get ready, cause things are about to go down.” Colin said while bringing up a holographic display from the device on his hand, rotating a holographic dial in the center.

“Time forwarding.”

“I am extremely worried, and normally I’m so crazy that ‘worrying’ is redundant but I am very worried right now”

“Don’t be. The army here deals with superhuman entities fairly often, and they’re just mundane humans. We have absolutely nothing to worry about. Tsun, you’ll change Pizza’s look, then I’ll test out this little number,” He motioned to the device on his arm. “Then we can… well, we could have a bit of fun here, killing some shit, or we could leave. Honestly, I’d prefer doing some killing for… personal reasons.”

“Okay then, let’s get your spec’s. Give me the eye colour, skin tone, hair colour. Do you want to have different shaded nails so it’s like you got permanent lacquer on ‘em? The possibilities are endless!”

“Before I say anything, is this something that would be something that could be deactivated easily? Or would it be more trouble.”

“It’s like a cosmetic skin that you can get in video games, it looks pretty but makes no changes to the fighting style or abilities of the person wearing it.” Haley explained. “Wait that does describe what you’re asking, right? Because sometimes I end up going wrong in the explanations and words just really ain’t the best for me and sometimes or maybe always get messed around when they come outta my mouth and then the person I’m talking to doesn’t get what I’m saying and I don’t get what they’re saying and then I feel like they’re gonna get annoyed because I always have to take a deep breath to reset myself and try to explain it better but when I try to explain it better I also talk slower and use more descriptive hand gestures and maybe they think that I’m disrespecting them when in actuality I’m trying to make it so I get it and they get it and oh no I’m rambling again!”

“I mean is it something I can remove in a few seconds and reveal my ‘natural’ self… if that is what you were saying.”

“I…. don’t know how to do that.” Haley visibly deflated, arms falling limp to her sides. “Maybe I’ll just train my magic and see what skills I can get in this world, there is enough grief to maintain that life.”

“I mean if I need to I could put on vanity clothing like my hat,” Riley pulled off her hat, which shifted into a hood similar to her armour that shadowed her face as she did so, “See? I’m sure wearing some sort of plain clothing that I have might be okay.”

“Okay… I’m going to go farm grief.” Haley wandered off, distracted by whatever was going on in her mind. “If you need me look for screaming.”

“Ahh... will do…” Haley was quickly out of Riley’s sight.

“Right, time to get to disguising stuff.” Riley proceeded to pull out a pink trough filled with gold coins from her pocket.

She shook the trough, which produced a little oinking sound… which strangely summoned a flying piggy bank from nowhere.

The girl then proceeded to stuff her hand into the piggy bank, which produced a red cloaked grey jacket, red hat and blue trousers from it’s oddly spacious inventory.

“I don’t think wherever this place it will like this vibrant cloak and hat… I think I might need to dye them.” She said before putting her hand back in the pig and produced three jars of dull brown liquid, which she proceeded to pour onto each article of clothing. After a few moments the previously vibrant parts of the clothing were now the colour of the ‘paint’

Taking one more look around to make sure no-one was going to see her changing, luckily it seemed that there wasn’t anyone around currently, she finally put on the clothes… over her armour.

A few minutes later the Skullgirl was ‘perfectly’ disguised.

“Now what do I do?”

——

With Haley gone and Riley dealing with her vanity clothing, Colin decided to sort out a few things with his personalized Omni-tool. Some of the tech he had integrated had caused some issues, which had disabled so features like the shock of the tech overload and the combat support drone, though it had been left with the incineration and cryo burst capabilities. Colin looked over at Riley, still figuring out a disguise for this world, then looked back to his Omni-tool, and finally shook his head.  _ I’ll test it on her. Once they get here, of course.  _ The previously stolen tech from the A.S. Society was still somewhat unstable. Testing it on Riley would be unwise, especially with her mental capabilities. Haley would likely make a better test subject, if not due to a potentially more interesting and amusing reaction.

A cacophony of screams pierced the air as a giant crash reverberated all throughout the district.

Oh, either Tsun’s going too far or things have started happening.” Colin floated up, seeing a giant, skinless head in the distance. “Yep, titans.” And flew off in the direction he noticed Haley go.

When he came upon the puella magi she was watching a strange titan, for instead of the normal peachy tone the rest had this one was far more ashen, almosts gray in colour. The titan broke the roof of one of the houses and pulled out a struggling man before consuming him with one gulp.

“Ergh.” Colin cringed seeing this. Shaking it off, he switched the setting of the Omni-tool, and aimed it at himself. In seconds, he was significantly reduced in size.  _ Excellent, that one works. Time to test the other.  _ Colin switched the settings on the Omni-tool again, transported over to Haley, and fired a holodart from the tool into the back of her neck. This time, a shocked Haley grew to nearly the height of the massive titan in the distance. “Hm, maybe I should adjust the multiplier a bit…” Checking the settings, Colin realised he had put in a fifty times multiplier as the effect. “Huh… Well, best change that to somewhere around ten for the next attempt.”

“Eeek!” Haley pressed her hands against the front of her skirt, glaring down at Colin. “Give a girl some warning first you creep!” In the background the strange skinned titan regurgitated the human it ate and the pile started to morph into another strange skinned titan.”Don’t you remember what happens to giant people in this world! Turn me back!” Haley stomped her foot on the ground childishly.

“But wouldn’t it be fun to smack the shit out of some Titans at that size?” Colin called up to Haley.

“No it wouldn’t! Turn me back!” Haley was visibly distressed as she saw more people running towards the boats.

“Eh, alright, let’s just…” As Colin messed with the settings of his Omni-tool, he heard a beep, and the holographic interface faded. “Um, uh, that’s… uh, not supposed to happen…”

Meanwhile, in the background the gray skinned titans continued to consume and expel any humans that were unlucky enough to come across them, increasing their numbers gradually.

“Ugh this is what happens when you depend on divinity! This magic is  _ so  _ not worth it!” A bright light emitted from her necklace as she shrunk back down to her normal size. Grabbing a hold of the necklace she removed it before turning it back to it’s gem form. “And it’s already half done, gosh this is just peachy.” Haley brushed off her dress before turning towards the gray skinned titans and transforming. 

“So, before we starting killing, what’s up with those Titans?”

“Those aren’t titans. Those are what the grief cube became after it got its fill. But yes, we do need to destroy them if I want to live beyond the next week.” With a series of jumps using both ruined buildings and the gray titans themselves and leverage to get to the back of one of their necks. “Off with your head!” With a single chop the titan’s head was severed and dissipated into a gray mist with a couple of grief cubes falling to the ground when it was gone. The body Haley was standing on suffered a similar fate as she was left without a platform and started to plummet. Withdrawing her gun she let her powers change it into a grappling gun and hooked onto a nearby roof.

“Huh, well, guess we’re doing this now. Nice!” Giving his arm a few smacks, the Omni-tool flicked back to life. Colin pointed it in the direction of one of the grey-skinned titans, and a ball of fire rocketed off towards it, striking it square in the face, singeing it in the process. “Ah, excellent, that  _ is  _ still working.” He turned the tool off for the time, instead materializing a dark-colored spear, and bounding off atop the roofs of the surrounding buildings, striking the necks of any grey titans he saw.

Soon all the strange skinned titans were gone and piles of grief cubes were all that were left of the battle. Haley quickly collected them up, placing the ones she used to clear her gem into a small side pouch of her bag. Detransforming she held her gem at arm’s length.

“Well you’re going to get your worst nightmare Cav. Because of that little enlargement stunt I’m going to be recognized the way I am now. Like can you imagine that? It’d be like ‘Hey you look just like that weird giant titan that was taller than Colossel! Let’s kill it!’ and then I’m going to be sad because I’ll have to defend myself and we both know defending myself means brutal murder. So I’m going to change my appearance again.”

“Oooor, we could just leave. I only wanted to come here to kill a few titans and test out how that size alteration tech effected this Omni-tool, and Pizza just needed a quiet place to change his look. All of that is done, so I say we humor one of Riles’ ideas and head to the Pokemon world, cause I actually thought of something slightly neat I could possibly do with one, specific item.”

Haley gave Colin a deadpan look before turning around and messing with her menu’s. “Riley’s over that way, let’s go. Unfunner.”

“I don’t see how I am, but alright, let’s go.”


	14. Chapter 14

Colin and Haley fell out of the portal, Haley landing on their feet, Colin floating down beside her. Riley, however, not expecting the portal to open below her, fell out, landing on her backside.

“Well, here we are, the beautiful, tropical Hoenn region! Specifically, Slateport. I thought we could use a bit of a vacation or something, since most of the worlds we’ve been going to have lead to us fighting shit. I did want to pick up an item relating to a certain husk dragon, but that could wait if you guys’d prefer to relax a bit on the beach? I’ll leave it to you what we do, I feel like I’ve been taking over a bit in this little exploit.”

“Relaxing might be a good idea, not many places are as safe as a Pokemon town… unless we’re talking about that unovan dragon city, that place got frozen up…” Riley said as she started removing sand from her ‘graceful entry’.

“Oh yeah... what Pokemon are we in? Anime, Game or Manga?”

“Wait Cav! I need you to send me to the ‘Star vs the Forces of Evil’ universe! I had a brilliant idea that will make everything so much better and also ban us from a place.”

“Wait, ‘ban’? ...Actually, whatever, you do whatever, me and Pizza will relax here. There are two things I wanted to do here, but one of them can be done wherever. Anyways, here.” Colin opened a portal beside Haley, ready for a better mode of transport if she was doing what he thought.

Haley hopped into the portal, only to drop out of another one seconds later and about two meters away.

“I got the scissors!” She held up a pair of scissors, it’s handles forming a star shape when pushed together. “In fact I got an extra pair. It’s amazing how little security they have in the black market!” She then threw a pair whose handle’s formed a skull shape at Riley.

“Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go visit the Unmoving Library!” Haley cut a hole in the fabric of space time and left once again.

“Well, that was really quick. At least we’ve got those, so now…” Colin formed a bowling ball-size orb in his hand, marked with a swirl. He threw the orb out into the ocean, hoping nothing could access it but him. “Ah, that’s better. Man, godlike powers suck.” Colin then shrank himself with his omni-tool, and then reverted when he remembered he couldn’t fly anymore. “Right, forgot about flight. Huh. Oh well, gonna need to get that somewhere else.”

“Okay then… please answer the question, what Pokemon are we in?”

“Huh, oh, right, you asked that before. Should be the game's’ universe. Why? What are you planning?”

“Oh you know… raising the dead, both literally and figuratively.”

“Great, hey, I’m gonna be sitting this out for a bit, mind picking something up for me while you’re out?”

“What do you need?”

“Well, I would be ever so pleased if you would find me the DNA Splicer. I want to see what I can do with it and this custom omni-tool I made, I had some ideas on that matter.”

“You teach me how to use the scissors and I’ll beat the fuck outta Ghetsis and get it for you now.”

“Pretty sure you just need to think of where you’re going, and then use them like scissors in mid-air. Then they open a portal to wherever the fuck it is.”

“Ok then, time to punch Ghetsis in the face.” Still rather clueless with how to use the scissors, Riley attempted a quick snip.

“KIIIIIIIIIIICK!” And then suddenly an armored figure zoomed through the resulting rift, before smashing into the ground, resulting in a small explosion. “....” The figure stood up, glaring about with glowing red eyes. “What the actual hell just happened?”

“Umm, OK, Pizza, what did you just do? Why is there a weird bug-man-thing standing here?” Colin sat there, looking at the strange figure before them.

“I don’t know! But can I file a complaint about sand?” “

“What even is going on?” the Strange Bug Man asked, quite confused. “Where am I and who are you?”

“That would be Riley, I would be Colin, and now we would love to know who the fuck you are before I incinerate your ass.” Colin said, pointing his omni-tool at the Bugman.

“Jesse, alias Kamen Rider Black RX.” he replied. “Where am I?”

“Slateport City… wait, Jesse?” Colin looked at the bugman in confusion. Did they just accidentally…?

“Yes… wait. Colin?” RX asked, rather confused. “And Slateport? Like, Pokemon Slateport?”

“Wait... Pizza?”

“Pizza, shut up. Yeah, Pokemon Slateport; Jesse, how the fuck are you here and why do you look like a Beetleborg?”

“....I just got dragged through a dimensional rift of some kind, and wound up here…” Jesse answered, rubbing the side of his helmet, resulting in a squeaking sound. “And I’m a Kamen Rider, not a Beetleborg.”

Colin sat there, stunned that his friend just randomly fell out of the sky, then walked over to Riley, slapped her across the face, and took the scissors out of her hands. “You aren’t allowed to use dimension travelling abilities anymore.” He then cut his own rift with the scissors and shoved Riley through. “Right, so, he’s going to punch one of the worst parents ever in the face, now, if you’d be so kind as to explain how you ended up here and in that suit, Jess, that would be great.”

“Well, it’s a very long story…” Jesse sighs. “So… what was that about punching horrible parents?”

“Oh, well, she just wanted to punch Ghetsis, I guess, not totally sure about anything besides that. I think he did say he wanted to catch Kyurem a while back, though.”

“Huh. I think I like’m already.” He nods. “Hmmm….. Do you happen to have a Pokeball? I want to try a thing.”

“Umm, I don’t think so,” Colin began rifling through his pockets, pulling out a stack of cash. “But I apparently have this. Huh. If this is like the the games in full, that should be about three-thousand Pokemon dollars, or whatever the currency was referred to as.”

“Awww….” Jesse sighs. “Well, let’s find us a Pokeball of some kind. I feel in the mood for Hax.”

“We can just buy one, the mart’s just to the north.”

“Huzzah!” Jesse fistpumps. “Let us be off. FOR SHENANIGANS!”

“What has magic rought...”

All that got was a demonic cackling from the Bug-Man. And then the two went off to the PokeMart. “I’ll take three Great Balls.” The cashier was somewhat intimidated by the near 7 foot tall Bug-Man, but accepted the money. Afterwards, he set one of the Great Balls down on a table nearby, and then…. “KINGSTONE FLASH!”    
A massive ray of red light covers the single Ball, which once it faded had become ten Ultra Balls.    
“Holy crap that worked……” Jesse rubs his hands together.

“Wha… what just happened?”

“The stones in my belt let me make Reality shut up and go to the corner.” Jesse answers cheerfully. “Among other things. I can also warp reality by kicking it!”   
He tossed one of the Ultra Balls up and down on his armored palm.

“Ok, nice, wow, that’s… Um… pardon me for a sec, I need to go…” Colin then bolted for the ocean, shouting “I fucked up! I fucked up!”

Jesse sighs and palms his face. “HEY COLIN! CAN I AT LEAST BORROW THOSE SCISSORS?”

“JUST RETURN THEM!” Colin shouted in response, throwing the scissors back at him.

“Thank ya kindly!” Jesse catches them, before spinning them around his fingers.    
After a moment’s thought, he holds them up and snips open a portal, sticking his arm through.    
“Hmmm….. It’s got to be around here someplaaaaaaaaaa- Jackpot.” After a little rummaging, he comes back through with a small green gauntlet/watch thing. “Perfect start…. Now…. what else…”

Several more snips later, he sets his prizes down on a nearby table, just barely resisting cackling. “Kekekekeke. Now then…. Let’s see..”   
Placing the Nemetrix on top of the Ultimatrix’s dial, then setting Albedo’s Recreated Ultimatrix on top of that, he draws in a breath and….. “KINGSTONE FLASH!”    
The resulting single device more resembles a black version of the original Ultimatrix, side by side with a green version of the Nemetrix.   
“Excellent. Excellent…. KWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!”   
Then he coughs. “Note to self. Rein in Maniacal Laughing.”

Then he deactivates his transformation, shook out his hair, and slid the New Ultimatrix on.   
“There we are….. Now. Just need someplace  to change clothes.”   
And so Jesse went off to change into his new outfit.

In the distance, the sound of “I FIXED IT! I FIXED IT!” could be heard, moving closer to where Jesse was.

“Huh. Well. That seems to be a thing…”   
Jesse shrugs, rolling his shoulders in his new sleeveless Rooter suit. “Wonder what that’s about…”

Then, he takes the scissors once more, opens a portal, and sticks his Ultimatrix arm through.   
After a moment, the indicator that a new species has been added to the list dings, and he closes said Portal.

“Now then…. I must see what’s going on with Colin.”   
With a sigh, he goes off to do just that.

Opening the door, he was met with a Colin wearing dark blue versions of the outfit he was previously. “Well, if there’s going to be a reality warper, I’m not the most overpowered asshole here anymore.”

“Huh. Nice outfit.”

Jesse nods. “What source did you tap into?”

“Uh, void stuff. Anyway I thought of a thing, so I’ll be right back, might explain later, bye.” and with that, Colin opened a portal and flew through.

“Well…. That was a thing.”

Jesse shrugs, not exactly sure what that was all about. Then he opened a portal over to a certain lakeside ledge just outside Fortree City. “Yes….. here we go…. This shall be the first…. KINGSTONE FLASH!”

And so the passage to the Secret Base was opened….

Sitting inside on a golden throne was Colin, who for some reason was eating a tree-shaped cookie.

“Huh. So you like this base as well?”

Jesse nods. “Good taste.”

“Well, it’s not bad, but I was mostly just popping in here cause I already grabbed the things I needed. Plus I don’t want to interrupt whatever Tsun’s up to, and Pizza should probably be done with punching Ghetsis, so she should be back any second.”

Jesse nods once more.

“Oh, by the way. Got something for your Omnitool.” He throws Colin the Mini Ultimatrix.

“Huh, this’ll probably be damn helpful with what I was planning to do once Pizza gets me the DNA Splicers.”

Jesse nods. He seems to be doing a lot of that as of late…

“Indeed….” He pauses.

“What were you planning on doing with it?”

“Well, I came into a certain giant mother fucking black dragon some time back, and I wanted to do something. Could be amusing.”

“FOR SCIENCE!” Jesse chuckles.

“And for absurd powers!”

“Huzzah!” Jesse pumps his fist in the air.

“And speaking of such….. KINGSTONE FLASH!”

And then a part of the base has been converted into a walled-off, fully stocked Mad Science Lab.

“Huh, neat.”

“Indeed.”

“So, any idea what we should do while we wait for the Nut Brigade?”

“Hmmm….” Jesse thinks to himself.

“Wanna build something?”

“Depends. What?”

“Well…. I was thinking about maybe seeing if we could make a Motorcycle that turns into a giant dragon…”

“Interesting, but I think I’m gonna go see how Pizza’s actually doing. You have fun with the bike.” Colin opened a portal beside himself and floated through, leaving behind the throne.

Jesse shrugs. “Well now. On to SCIENCE!”

He cackles maniacally, before throwing on a labcoat and snipping the scissors to draw out a sword. “Kekekekeke….. Now then….. Just need a way to replicate it and….”


	15. Chapter 15

“The darkness that had surrounded them when the earthen shell was made gave way to a distorted roo **m** . It’s fixtures held a certain fake quality to them, as though they were props on a stage. S **i** tting in one corner sat a girl who looked a lot like Haley, except for the fact that she still w **o** re glasses.

“Hello,” the girl was looking directly at them, “Welcome to the final resting place.”

“Of what exactly?” Jesse looks around with a slight bit of interest.

“Us, maybe you, most certainly us though.”

“Well, this seems like a good time to start preparing.” Colin whispered to himself, his Bahamut-altered features appearing once again, making him look like a dragonewt. Soon after, a dark blue smoke began forming at his feet.

“Waitwaitwait, do I get ended here? Or can I leave.”

The girl ignored Riley as she faced Colin more directly. “If you decide to harm me you’ll never get any information. I doubt you want to go through this blind.” Now she looked towards Riley, “I’m sorry but this is a situation of ‘one way in, no way out’.”

“No way out, is it?” Colin opened a portal below Riley, pulling her out of the room. “This is between the three of us. Leave Riley out of this.”

At his actions the girl seemed annoyed, “excellent job, you just sent your companion to an unspecified area of this pocket space. Surely you know how a barrier works?  _ He _ wouldn’t make them so flimsy as for any girl to get out so easily. They’re meant to die in them just as they’re meant to create them.”

“Colin Reed you chose to act rather than ask what information I had to offer. Now you’ve put your ally at risk. Do you wish to rectify your mistake or do you wish to continue down that path?”

“You’re doubting my abilities, it would seem. I’d rather you didn’t do as such, Haley.” The smoke around his feet became thicker, encompassing his lower legs.

“ **I’m not her!** ” The girl’s face flushed with rage, eyes flashing red. Realizing her outburst she took a breath to recompose herself before beginning again. “You are incomprehensible, are you so overconfident you believe you can overcome something that has trapped a goddess? Specifically a goddess meant to prevent such things. Smarten up or this won’t just be our final stage.”

“Is this……” Jesse slowly starts to realize what this may be. “Did you actually…… A BARRIER?!”

“I did nothing. I am a product of this. Would you like to know more?”

“Actually, yes.” Jesse nods. “Jumping into a situation blind ends well for no one.”

“Finally, a wise answer. This is the barrier produced by *******,” the girl’s spoke a word incomprehensible to the human ear, heard instead as a cacophonic buzz. “It holds two types of familiars, Mira’s and Star Struck’s. I am one of the latter. Our purpose is to fulfil the role our namesakes had. Any questions?”

“Many. You have yet to elaborate on your purpose.”

“Our purpose, as Star Strucks, are to fulfil the roles of our namesakes. I said as much before.”

Jesse sighs. “I am not familiar with your namesake, so I am unaware exactly what your role entails.”

“Well that is quite simple. I am the one who does not have emotions, who instead observes and makes decisions from an objective perspective. My purpose is to gain knowledge and help others, which is what I am doing. Common name Mio, original Moi. I’m one of the decem.”

“Interesting.” Jesse places a hand on his chin. “A separate being created for pure objectivity. That’s actually genius. I must hold on to that for potential future iterations.”

“I wouldn’t. She attempted that and created us. Decem, septimo, hellions. We’re not stable, not before, barely now.”

“A precarious position then.” Jesse states, his tone thoughtful. “In what manner are you unstable?”

“Star Strucks are fractured pieces of *******, each a piece she used to explain her feelings or bonds. We never truly existed in a place outside the headspace, and hosting multiple selves is never healthy.”

“Incomplete then. Would having separate bodies help you?”

“How would a body help someone who lacks emotions. Even with a proper shell we wouldn’t be healthy. That was clear enough with the base design.”

“You realize that we have access to the Multiverse. There are ways of artificially inducing emotions. I could name several off the top of my head.”

Mio let out a sigh before speaking again, “I have no desire to become like the base design.”

Jesse is now more confused than ever. “Then what exactly is it that you want?” 

“My purpose is to gain knowledge and gift it to those in need.”

“You have said this before…. Do you know why we are here, and where here exactly is?”

“You are in the barrier produced by *******. You are here because you were in the blast radius when it opened.”

“Do you know how we can get out?”

“Killing the witch. There is no other way.”

Jesse closes his eyes. “I understand.” He sighs sadly. “What will happen to you when the Barrier falls?”

“The base design took steps to ensure that no familiars would escape to create barriers on their own, so I shall fade away along with this place.”

“Ahh. I see. And I’m so very sorry for what we have to do.” Glowing red lines along with a black fluid spread out along Jesse’s body, forming into sleek armor marked with a red circuit pattern, only broken up by the odd orange diamond where his mouth should be. He turns to Colin.

“Time to hunt.” 

Having stood there, absorbing the information, Colin thought of one last question. “If you aren’t her, where is Haley? And what has happened to her?”

“Her wish caught up to her, like they always do.”

“Colin, there’s no saving her as she is now. Once a Magical Girl becomes a Witch…. The only solution is death.” Jesse states. “Otherwise she will draw more and more people into here to feed, and spread grief.”

“Absolutely no other way?”

“The base design in gone. Do you still wish for hope in despair’s labyrinth?”

“We have to kill her. At least…. This Her.” Jesse looks over at the Page of Void. “We’ll see what we’ll do to recreate her afterwards, but now time is of the essence. We need to move.”

“So, her ‘base design’ as you call it has ceased to exist? It has become… void? Would you say?”

“The base design’s wish caught up to her, her Soul Gem burst.”

“And her Body and Soul have twisted into an entity known as a Witch, the creator of this Barrier.”

“Actually the body does not turn into the Witch, as shown with Sayaka’s in the final time loop. It is just that the body fades into the labyrinth with enough time, just like all the victims a Witch takes. Otherwise you’d have barriers piled high with corpses.”

“Which means once we kill her, her corpse will be there…. Fantastic. Just great. Just  **Fucking Great** .”

Colin stood there for a second more. “...Very well. I’ll simply have to call in a favor from a friend.”

“Think of the wishes of others.”

“If the wish was to an actual benefit, I would…” Colin glanced sideways at the entity calling itself Mio, then floated off into the labyrinth, the smoke still trailing behind him.

“Look for the hero.” Mio called after the boys before a shattering sound was heard. When they looked back they saw that the room they had been in was left in disrepair and a suspicious stain covered the ground.

“Well…. As Ben Tennyson was always wont to say…. Going Hero.” Jesse rotates through the Ultimatrix, before selecting an Alien, and slamming down on the dial. In a flash of green light, his body ripples and twists, enlarging yet also contracting. “Big…. Chill…” The pseudo-Necrofriggian calls out, before opening his wings and soaring after Colin.


End file.
